"Do you want me to love Estelle?" he asked in desperation.
Claire shook her head.
"I'd like her—to be loved," she said, still sobbing.
Winn looked wonderingly at her.
"Well, as far as that goes, so would I," he observed, with a sardonic grin. "There'd be some way out for us then."
Claire shook her head vehemently, but she made no attempt to explain her tears. She felt that she couldn't alter him, and that when he most surprised her it was wiser to accept these surprises than to probe her deep astonishment.
He surprised her very often, he was in such a hurry to unburden himself of all he was. It seemed to him as if he must tell her everything while he had her. He expressed himself as he had never in his wildest dreams supposed that any man could express himself to another human being. He broke down his conventions, he forced aside his restraint, he literally poured out his heart to her. He gave her his opinions, his religion, his codes of conduct, until she began a little to understand his attitude toward Estelle.
It was part of his exterior way of looking at the world at large. Up till now people, except Lionel, had never really entered into his imagination. Of course there were his servants and his dogs and, nearer still, his horses. He spent hours telling her about his horses. They really had come into his life, but never people; even his own family were nothing but a background for wrangles.
He had never known tenderness. He had had all kinds of odd feelings about Peter, but they hadn't got beyond his own mind. His tenderness was beyond everything now; it over-flowed expression. It was the radical thing in him. He showed her plainly that it would break his heart if she were to let her feet get wet. He made plans for her future which would have suited a chronic invalid. He wanted to give her jewels, expensive specimens of spaniels, and a banking account.
She would take nothing from him but a notebook and a little opal ring. Winn restrained his passion, but out of revenge for his restraint his fancies ran wild.