"You judge others by your own honest character; but I'm not so certain. If there is a man who could live platonically beside a woman he loves, that man might be Yeoland. There's something grotesque in him there—some warp or twist of fibre. Remember how well content he was in the past to remain engaged to her without rushing into her arms and marrying her. He's cold-blooded—so to call it—in some ways. I've known other such men."
"It's contrary to nature."
"Contrary to yours, but temperaments are different Don't judge him. There may be a want in him, or he may possess rare virtues. Some are ascetic and continent by disposition and starve Nature, at some secret prompting of her own. I don't say he is that sort of man, but he may be. Certainly his standpoint is far less commonplace than yours."
"I caught him kissing a pretty milkmaid once, all the same; and that after he was engaged to Honor," answered the other gloomily.
"Exactly. Now you would not do such a thing for the world, and he would make light of it. Beauty merely intoxicates some men; but intoxicated men do little harm as a rule. He's irresponsible in many ways; yet still I say the husband that fears such a man must be a fool."
"I can't suppose him built differently to other people."
"Then assume him to be the same, and ask yourself this question: Seeing what he did for love of her, and granting he loves her still, has he come back to undo what he did? Would he change and steal her now, even if he had the power to do so? What has he done in the past that makes you dream him capable of such a deed in the future?"
"I don't say that he dreams that such a thing is possible. Probably the man would not have returned into the atmosphere of Honor if he had dimly contemplated such an event. But I see nothing in his character to lift him above the temptation, or to make me rest sure he will be proof against it. There's a danger of his opening his eyes too late to find the thing which he doubtless believes impossible at present an accomplished fact."
"What thing?"
"Why, the wakening again of his love for her, the returned knowledge that his life is empty and barren and frost-bitten without her. He felt that once. What more natural than that, here again, he should feel it redoubled in the presence of his own good fortune in every other direction?"