I'm late for an appointment now."

As he drove away ten minutes later he drew a long breath. "Gad!"
said he half aloud, "Rita'll never realize how close I was to
proposing to-day. She ALMOST had me.... Though why I should think
of it that way I don't know. It's damned low and indelicate of me.
She ought to be my wife. I love her as much as a man of experience
can love a woman in advance of trying her out thoroughly. If she
had money I'd not be hesitating, I'm afraid. Then, too, I don't
think the moral tone of that set she and I travel with is what it
ought to be. It's all very well for me, but--Well, a man ought to
be ready for almost anything that might happen if his wife went
with that crowd--or had gone with it before he married her. Not
that I suspect Margaret, though I must say--What a pup this sort
of life does make of a man in some ways! ...Yes, I almost leaped.
She'll never know how near I came to it.... Perhaps Josh's more
than half-right and I'm oversophisticated. My doubts and delays
may cost me a kind of happiness I'd rather have than anything on
earth--IF it really exists." There he laughed comfortably. "Poor
Rita! If she only knew, how cut up she'd be!"

He might not have been so absolutely certain of her ignorance
could he have looked into the Severances' drawing-room just then.
For Margaret, after a burst of hysterical gayety, had gone to the
far end of the room on the pretext of arranging some flowers. And
there, with her face securely hid from the half-dozen round the
distant tea-table, she was choking back the sobs, was muttering:
"I'll have to do it! I'm a desperate woman--desperate!"