"Would it not have been easier to face his displeasure than to risk doing him harm? Be just to yourself, Jean."
Jean smiled. "I see," she said. "Yes—then it really was conscience. One gets so puzzled . . . And to have to settle in such a hurry—not able to see ahead . . . Did you come on business?"
"Nothing pressing. It can wait till another day. I wanted to know how your father was."
He debated silently how soon to go after Mr. Trevelyan; a step already resolved on. Jean had looked so forlorn when he entered, that he would not at once leave her.
"I should have sent for you, if only I could have felt sure—But if Barclay had died meantime—"
"Yes; I can hardly think you would have been justified."
"I am glad you think so," with a more restful look. After a break, she resumed, "I was telling you, the other day, all about Barclay—the sort of life his has been. I wanted to ask you a question; only we were interrupted. It puzzles me sometimes how a man like that—brought up as he was—how he can help being what he is . . . I mean—can he help it? . . . If he has inherited all sorts of evil ways—and if all his associations were so bad—things he could not alter—doesn't it seem as if he must have grown into his present shape, without any choice of his own? And if that is true, how can he be responsible for it?"
"No man is responsible for what he cannot help."
"Or for its results—"
"Or for results; so far as he has been absolutely powerless to prevent those results."