“Probably.”
Stewart groaned. Peter closed Marie's American trunk of which she had been so proud, and coming over looked down at the injured man.
“Don't you think you'd better tell the girl all about it?”
“No,” doggedly.
“I know, of course, it wouldn't be easy, but—you can't get away with it, Stewart. That's one way of looking at it. There's another.”
“What's that?”
“Starting with a clean slate. If she's the sort you want to marry, and not a prude, she'll understand, not at first, but after she gets used to it.”
“She wouldn't understand in a thousand years.”
“Then you'd better not marry her. You know, Stewart, I have an idea that women imagine a good many pretty rotten things about us, anyhow. A sensible girl would rather know the truth and be done with it. What a man has done with his life before a girl—the right girl—comes into it isn't a personal injury to her, since she wasn't a part of his life then. You know what I mean. But she has a right to know it before she chooses.”
“How many would choose under those circumstances?” he jibed.