and in the moonlight at which, languishing in his arms, their
eyes would speak.
None of the compulsion of the practical. None of the inhibitions which the dominance and possible future opposition of her parents might imply. Just love and summer, and idyllic and happy progress toward an eventual secure and unopposed union which should give him to her forever.
And in the meantime, in so far as Roberta was concerned, two more long, dreary, terrifying months going by without that meditated action on her part which must result once it was taken in Clyde's undoing. For, as convinced as she was that apart from meditating and thinking of some way to escape his responsibility, Clyde had no real intention of marrying her, still, like Clyde, she drifted, fearing to act really. For in several confer- ences following that in which she had indicated that she expected him to marry her, he had reiterated, if vaguely, a veiled threat that in case she appealed to his uncle he would not be compelled to marry her, after all, for he could go elsewhere.
The way he put it was that unless left undisturbed in his present situation he would be in no position to marry her and furthermore could not possibly do anything to aid her at the coming time when most of all she would stand in need of aid—a hint which caused Roberta to reflect on a hitherto not fully developed vein of hardness in Clyde, although had she but sufficiently reflected, it had shown itself at the time that he compelled her to admit him to her room.
In addition and because she was doing nothing and yet he feared that at any moment she might, he shifted in part at least from the attitude of complete indifference, which had availed him up to the time that she had threatened him, to one of at least simulated interest and good-will and friendship. For the very precarious condition in which he found himself was sufficiently terrifying to evoke more diplomacy than ever before had characterized him. Besides he was foolish enough to hope, if not exactly believe, that by once more conducting himself as though he still entertained a lively sense of the problem that afflicted her and that he was willing, in case no other way was found, to eventually marry her (though he could never definitely be persuaded to commit himself as to this), he could reduce her determination to compel him to act soon at least to a minimum, and so leave him more time in which to exhaust every possibility of escape without marriage, and without being compelled to run away.
And although Roberta sensed the basis of this sudden shift,
