"Never."
"I don't mean particularly like this. Like this, I know you haven't. But any other way?"
"No, I don't think I ever have. I went away from home when I was eighteen—I wasn't happy there. Then I had to work too hard."
"Then you are a little starved gutter-arab." He took her gently in his arms. "And what do I seem to you—eh? Sort of fairy prince, I suppose, in gold armour."
"You seem like God, sometimes," she whispered.
He put her away with a stab of conscience—seated her on a chair and looked down at her.
"It's silly to talk like that," he said evenly. "If there is a God—and I suppose there is—the world spends a heap of money in fostering the idea—then He's certainly more consistent in His being than I am—though consistency always seems to me His weak point. But you've not got to idealize me, you know. You remember what I once said to you—don't you?"
"What was that?"
"There's a beast in every man, thank God!"
"Yes—I don't think I shall ever forget that."