He had promised never to do the very thing that he now felt himself almost in the act of doing.

He had promised not to jump over that balcony and speak to that policeman.

He took his cold hand off the cold stone balustrade.

His soul swayed in a vertigo of moral indecision.

He had only to snap the thread of a rash vow made to a villainous society, and all his life could be as open and sunny as the square beneath him.