"I do give it," she said.
"Then I believe you," he answered. "With all my heart and soul, I believe you."
She dropped her eyes again, and turning with her thumb an opal ring on her finger, she began to use the blandishments which had never failed with other men.
"I do not say that I am altogether without blame," she said. "I may have lived a thoughtless life amid scenes of poverty and sorrow. If so, perhaps it has been partly the fault of the men about me. When is a woman anything but what the men around have made her?"
She dropped her voice almost to a whisper, and added: "You are the first man who has not praised and flattered me."
"I was not thinking of you," he said. "I was thinking of another, and perhaps of the poor working women who, in a world of luxury, have to struggle and starve."
She looked up, and a half-smile crossed her face.
"I honour you for that," she said. "And perhaps if I had earlier met a man like you my life might have been different. I used to hope for such things long ago—that a man of high aims and noble purposes would come to meet me at the gate of life. Perhaps you have felt like that—that some woman, strong and true, would stand beside you for good or for ill, in your hour of danger and your hour of joy?"
Her voice was not quite steady—she hardly knew why.
"A dream! We all have our dreams," he said.