"Why?" echoed Genevieve, gazing down at her clasped hands, which still showed a trace of tropical tan.
"You know it—it puts me in rather a nasty box," went on Lord James. "Had I not met you before he did, it is possible that I could have avoided—You see my predicament. He and I've been together so much, I can foresee the effect on him of—er—of a great disappointment."
Genevieve gazed up at him with startled eyes. "Lord James, you must explain that; you must be explicit."
"I—I did not intend to so much as mention it," stammered the young Englishman, bitterly chagrined at himself. "It was only—pray, do not ask me, Miss Leslie!"
"You referred, of course, to his drinking," said Genevieve, in a tone as tense as it was quiet. "Do not reproach yourself. When we were cast ashore together, he was—not himself. But when I remember all those weeks that followed—! You cannot imagine how brave and resolute, how truly courageous he was!—and under that outward roughness, how kind and gentle!"
"I too know him. That's what makes it so hard. The thought that I may possibly cause him a disappointment that may result in—" Lord James came to a stop, tugging at his mustache.
Genevieve was again staring at the slender little hands, from which the most expert manicuring had not yet entirely removed all traces of rough usage.
"He told me something of—of what he had to fight," she murmured in a troubled voice. "But I feel that—that if something came into his life—" She blushed, but went on bravely—"something to take him out of what he calls the grind—"
Lord James had instantly averted his gaze from her crimsoning face.
"That's the worst of it!" he burst out. "If only I could feel sure that he—I've seen him fight—Gad! how he has fought—time and again. Yet sooner or later, always the inevitable defeat!"