other."

Alan looked at her hard. Her face was crimson by this with
maidenly shame; but she made no effort to hide or avert it. For
the good of humanity, this question must be settled once for all;
and no womanish reserve should make her shrink from settling it.
Happier maidens in ages to come, when society had reconstructed
itself on the broad basis of freedom, would never have to go
through what she was going through that moment. They would be
spared the quivering shame, the tingling regret, the struggle with
which she braced up her maiden modesty to that supreme effort. But
she would go through with it all the same. For eternal woman's
sake she had long contemplated that day; now it had come at last,
she would not weakly draw back from it.

Alan's eyes were all admiration. He stood near enough to her level
to understand her to the core. "Herminia," he cried, bending over
her, "you drive me to bay. You press me very hard. I feel myself
yielding. I am a man; and when you speak to me like that, I know
it. You enlist on your side all that is virile within me. Yet how
can I accept the terms you offer? For the very love I bear you,
how do you this injustice? If I loved you less, I might perhaps
say yes; because I love you so well, I feel compelled to say no to
you."

Herminia looked at him hard in return. Her cheeks were glowing now
with something like the shame of the woman who feels her love is
lightly rejected. "Is that final?" she asked, drawing herself up
as she sat, and facing him proudly.