“My folly—to turn my back?”
“No, no—to guarantee.”
“My dear fellow, wouldn’t you?”—and Gaston stared.
“Never in the world.”
“You’d have thought her capable—?”
“Capabilissima! And I shouldn’t have cared.”
“Do you think her then capable of breaking out again in some new way that’s as bad?”
“I shouldn’t care if she was. That’s the least of all questions.”
“The least?”
“Ah don’t you see, wretched youth,” cried the artist, pausing from his work and looking up—“don’t you see that the question of her possibilities is as nothing compared to that of yours? She’s the sweetest young thing I ever saw; but even if she happened not to be I should still urge you to marry her, in simple self-preservation.”