He shook his head.
"Not even if it was for her good. No one who calls himself a gentleman—"
I couldn't help flinging him a scornful smile.
"Isn't it too late to think in terms like that? We've come to a place where such words don't apply. The best we can do is to get out of a difficult situation as wisely as possible, and if you'd just go away and leave it to me—"
"She'd never forgive me. That's what I'd be afraid of."
"There's nothing to be afraid of in doing right," I declared, a little sententiously. "You'll do right in going away. The rest will take care of itself."
We came to the edge of the town, where there was a gate leading into a pasture. Over this gate we leaned and looked down on a valley of orchards and farms. He was sufficiently at ease to take out a cigarette and ask my permission to smoke.
"What would you say of a man who treated you like that?" he asked, presently.
"It wouldn't matter what I said at first, so long as I lived to thank him. That's what she'd do, and she'd do it soon."
"And in the mean time?"