Helen answered: "I am sorry it is so—but why should I pain you? Can you not take my answer without the reasons?"
"No; not if you will give them," persisted Geoffrey. "I have grown accustomed to unpleasant things, and it is to be hoped there is truth in the belief that they are good for one. The truth from your lips would hurt me less. Will you not tell me?"
"I will try if you demand it." Helen, who could not help noticing how unflinchingly he had received what was really a needlessly cold rebuff, hoped she was lucid as she began:
"I have a respect for you, Mr. Thurston, but—how shall I express it?—also a shrinking. You—please remember, you insisted—seem so hard and overbearing, and while power is a desirable attribute in a man—— But will you force me to go on?"
"I beg you to go on," said Geoffrey, with a certain grimness.
"In spite of a popular fallacy, I could not esteem a—a husband I was afraid of. A man should be gentle, pitiful and considerate to all women. Without mutual forbearance there could be no true companionship—and——"
"You are right." Geoffrey's voice was humble without bitterness. "I have lived a hard life, and perhaps it has made me, compared with your standard, brutal. Still, I would ask again, are these all your reasons? Is the other difference between us too great—the distance dividing the man you gave the dollar to from the daughter of Julius Savine?"
"No," answered Helen. "That difference is, after all, imaginary. We do not think over here quite as you do in England, and if we did, are you not a Thurston of Crosbie? But please believe that I am sorry, and—you insisted on the explanation—forgive me if I have said too much. There is a long future before you—and men change their minds."
Geoffrey's face darkened, and Helen, who regretted the last hasty words which escaped her without reflection, watched him intently until he said:
"Musker must have told you about something in my life. But I was not inconstant though the fault was doubtless mine. That is a story which cannot be mentioned again, Miss Savine."