“Because I'm a man, I suppose, and a fool”
“If it was simply, 'because you are a man' as you call it, it is clear that no principle or faith governs you. And yet you ask me to give you Noel; my poor Noel, who wants the love and protection not of a 'man' but of a good man. No, Captain Fort, no!”
Fort bit his lips. “I'm clearly not a good man in your sense of the word; but I love her terribly, and I would protect her. I don't in the least know whether she'll have me. I don't expect her to, naturally. But I warn you that I mean to ask her, and to wait for her. I'm so much in love that I can do nothing else.”
“The man who is truly in love does what is best for the one he loves.” Fort bent his head; he felt as if he were at school again, confronting his head-master. “That's true,” he said. “And I shall never trade on her position. If she can't feel anything for me now or in the future, I shan't trouble her, you may be sure of that. But if by some wonderful chance she should, I know I can make her happy, sir.”
“She is a child.”
“No, she's not a child,” said Fort stubbornly.
Pierson touched the lapel of his new tunic. “Captain Fort, I am going far away from her, and leaving her without protection. I trust to your chivalry not to ask her, till I come back.”
Fort threw back his head. “No, no, I won't accept that position. With or without your presence the facts will be the same. Either she can love me, or she can't. If she can, she'll be happier with me. If she can't, there's an end of it.”
Pierson came slowly up to him. “In my view,” he said, “you are as bound to Leila as if you were married to her.”
“You can't, expect me to take the priest's view, sir.”