CHAPTER VII
A WOMAN'S HEART
If a few months before any one had told Radford Leicester that in order to gain a woman's good opinion he would excuse his own mode of life, he would have either grown angry or laughed that man to scorn. Yet he contemplated doing it at that moment. Perhaps if Sprague or Purvis had been in the room at that moment, they would not have been sure whether he were in earnest, or whether he were playing a part in order to win his wager. For they believed him to be capable of anything. But Leicester was not playing a part. He felt that nothing was too much, that no sacrifice was too great to win the woman who stood before him. And yet in his sacrifice he would not appear to humble himself, for he was a proud man.
"In the past I have not taken the trouble to contradict idle gossip," he said. "I did not think it worth while. Besides, I did not mind what people believed about me. But I have the right to tell you the truth."
"Really, Mr. Leicester, there is no need, and I do not wish to hear confessions."
"But I have the right."
"What right?"
"The right of a man whose future is in your hands, the right of a man whom you can send to heaven or to hell," he replied. "Oh, I am not speaking idle words. Forgive me if I seem to boast. I am no dandy who has made love a dozen times, and to whom a refusal means nothing but what a bottle of wine or a trip to the Continent can atone for. Whether your answer is yes or no, means everything to me. For you must become my wife, I tell you you must!"
The girl's eyes flashed refusal, even while they did not lack in admiration. No woman respects a man the less because he will not contemplate refusal.
"Listen, then," he went on. "You have heard all sorts of things about me. I am an atheist, I am a drunkard, I am a cynic, and I laugh at the standards of Mrs. Grundy. Yes, you have heard all that."