On the evening before the wedding van Tuiver was to attend a “stag-dinner” with his friends; but he called in to see her for a few minutes, and the family discreetly left them alone. In a sudden access of longing, he clasped her in his arms, and she forced herself to submit. Then he began to kiss her, to press passionate kisses upon her cheek and throat. His breath was hot, and utterly horrible to her; she could not endure it, and cried out to him to stop, and struggled and pushed him away. Still holding her, and gazing at her with desire blazing in his eyes, he whispered, “Not yet?”
“Is it not time you were beginning to learn?” he demanded; and then, wholly beside himself, “Sylvia, how much longer am I to endure this? Can’t you understand what you make me suffer? I love you—I love you to distraction, and I get nothing from you—nothing! I dare not even tell you that I love you!”
The passion in his voice made her shudder; and yet, too, she pitied him. She was ashamed of herself for the way she treated him. “What can I do?” she cried. “I can’t help it—as God is my witness, I can’t control my feelings. I ask myself, ought I to marry you so?”
“It seems to me it’s rather late to bring up that question,” he responded.
“I know, I know! I have nothing to say for myself—except that I didn’t know, I couldn’t realize. It’s something I must tell you—how I have come to feel—that I ought not to marry you, that you ought not to want me to marry you, while things are like this. You must know this, so that if I marry you, the responsibility will be yours!”
“And you think that is fair of you?” he demanded, his voice grown suddenly hard.
He meant to rebuke her, and she felt that he had a right to rebuke her; but the wave of emotion which swept her along was not to be controlled by her reason. “Oh, you are going to be angry about it!” she cried. “How horrible of you!”
He exclaimed, “Sylvia! Can you expect me not to be hurt?”
“I told you that I couldn’t help it! I told you in the very beginning that you would have to take me as I was, and be satisfied if I did my best! I told you that again and again—that I loved another man, that I love him still—”
She stopped. A spasm of pain crossed his face—followed by a look of fear. He hesitated, and then, his voice low and trembling, he began, “Sylvia, forgive me. I know that you are right—that you are trying to do your best. I will be patient. You must be patient with me also.”