"I'm in love with her, Gilbert!"
"Yes."
"I ... I asked her to run away with me!..."
Gilbert laughed. "You have hustled, Quinny," he said. "And she wouldn't, eh?"
"No!" Gilbert's laughter stimulated him, and he spoke more fluently. "But she's in love with me. She told me so. I've just come from her. And she wants me to stay in town."
"To be near her?"
"Yes. Yes, I suppose so. I had to tell you. I felt that I must tell you. Gilbert, I'm ashamed, but I can't help it. I love her so much that I'd ... I'd do anything for her."
Gilbert did not move nor did he speak. He sat in his chair, looking very intently at Henry.
"I can't understand myself," Henry went on. "My feelings are hopelessly mixed up. I want to do decent things and I loathe cads, but all the same I do caddish things myself. I want to be straight, but I'm not straight. ... It's awfully hard to explain what I mean, but there's something in me that seems to keep pulling me out of line, and I haven't enough force in me to beat it. I suppose it's the mill in my blood. My grandfather was a mill-owner."
Gilbert shook his head and smiled. "I don't think your notions of heredity are sound, Quinny. Is that all you have to confess?"