" She continued to gaze at him, her eyes troubled and confused.
What made him seem so much older, so different?
"Do you think we can ever forget Prom?" She waited for his reply. So
much depended on it.
"Of course," he answered impatiently. "I've forgotten that already. We
were crazy kids, that's all--youngsters trying to act smart and wild."
"Oh!" The ejaculation was soft, but it vibrated with pain. "You mean
that--that you wouldn't--well, you wouldn't get drunk like that again?"
"Of course not, especially at a dance. I'm not a child any longer,
Cynthia. I have sense enough now not to forfeit my self-respect again. I
hope so, anyway. I haven't been drunk in the last year. A drunkard is a
beastly sight, rotten. If I have learned anything in college, it is that
a man has to respect himself, and I can't respect any one any longer who
deliberately reduces himself to a beast. I was a beast with you a year
ago. I treated you like a woman of the streets, and I abused Norry
Parker's hospitality shamefully. If I can help it, I'll never act like a
rotter again, I hate a prig, Cynthia, like the devil, but I hate a
rotter even more.
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