"Not at all."
"Felician, be frank, please."
"Look here, one should not advise any one in affairs like that. Not even one's own brother."
"But if I ask you, Felician? It seems to me as though there is something in the business you didn't quite like."
"Well, it is like this, George.... You won't misunderstand me.... I know of course that you are not thinking of leaving her in the lurch. On the contrary, I am convinced that you will behave all through far more nobly than any ordinary man in your position. But the question is really this, would you have let yourself go into the thing if you had considered the consequences from every point of view?"
"That of course is very hard to answer," said George.
"I mean just this: Did you intend ... not to make her your companion for life, but to have a child by her all the same?"
"Great heavens, who thinks of that? Of course if one had wanted to be so absolutely on the safe side——"
Felician interrupted him. "Does she know that you are not thinking of marrying her?"
"Why, you don't think, surely, I promised her marriage?"