He did not answer that. Instead he said: "You came very near to getting your way about a year ago. I had about made up my mind to marry you."
"To marry me," she echoed ironically.
"To marry you," he repeated in his attractive, downright fashion.
"Well—why didn't you?"
"I decided I didn't need you," said he, most matter-of-fact. "I saw I'd be repeating the blunder I made when I married before. When I got out of college, I was so discouraged by the prospect, I felt so weak without money or influence, that I let myself drift into a great folly—for it is a folly to imagine that money or influence are of any value in making a career. They're the results of a career, not its cause. Once more, when I faced the big battle here in New York, I was fooled for a while in spite of myself by the same old delusion. I saw that the successful men all had great wealth, and I made the same old shallow mistake of supposing their wealth gave them their success. But I got back to the sensible point of view very quickly."
"And so—I—escaped."
"Escaped is the word for it."
"You are flattering—to-day."
"That sarcasm because I did not so much as speak of your charms, I suppose?"
"You might have said I was personally a little of a temptation."