“Mimi,” he pleaded, “let’s forget all this silly talk and let things go on like they were before. I was wrong in taking you to that hall—it wasn’t wrong in itself but wrong in the eyes of these people here—so I shouldn’t have let you go. You’re the only person here I care about seeing. Oh, Mimi, don’t let’s break off here. I’m a weak and foolish creature and the only thing that’s held me up has been you.”
Desperately, despairingly, he pleaded, but Mimi, though she felt herself weakening, steeled herself against the almost overwhelming impulse to take Carl’s head into her lap and hold it to her breast as she would a child’s. The confident, rebellious man had become a child and the mother instinct, strong within her, almost overpowered her. She found herself swept by a flaming, consuming affection for Carl. Had he remained assertive, sure of himself, she would have mastered it easily. But his self-revilement, his dependency upon her touched her deeply. Love had come to her and now she must put it from her. Loyalty to Hilda and the promise she had made to her demanded it.
“No, Carl,” she firmly reiterated her resolution. …