Before they parted for the night she threw her arms round his neck
impulsively. "Don't quite forget me, Paul. It would break my heart.
I've only you left now poor mother's gone."

Paul kissed her and vowed again. He did not vow that he would be a
mother to her, though to the girl's heart it seemed as if he did.
The little girl was aching for a note in his voice that never came.
Now, ninety-nine youths in a hundred who held, at such a sentimental
moment, a comely and not uncared-for maiden in their arms, would
have lost their heads (and their hearts) and vowed in the desired
manner. But Paul was different, and Jane knew it, to her sorrow. He
was by no means temperamentally cold; far from it. But, you see, he
lived intensely in his dream, and only on its outer fringe had Jane
her place. In the heart of it, hidden in amethystine mist, from
which only flashed the diadem on her hair, dwelt the exquisite, the
incomparable lady, the princess who should share his kingdom, while
he knelt at her feet and worshipped her and kissed the rosy tips of
her calm fingers. So, as it never entered his head to kiss the
finger tips of poor Jane, it never entered his head to fancy himself
in love with her. Therefore, when she threw herself into his arms,
he hugged her in a very sincere and brotherly way, but kissed her
with a pair of cast lips of Adonis. Of course he would never forget
her. Jane went to bed and sobbed her heart out. Paul slept but
little. The breaking up of the home meant the end of many precious
and gentle things, and without them he knew that his life would be
the poorer. And he vowed once more, to himself, that he would never
prove disloyal to Jane.

While he remained in London he saw what he could of her, sacrificing