Page:The Better Sort (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1903).djvu/114

THE BETTER SORT, yet if it did in truth appear almost at a glance that she would, through the particular facts of situation, history, aspect, tone, temper, beautifully "do," I felt from the first so affected by the business that I desired to wash my hands of it. There was something I wished to say to him before it went further, but after that I cared only to be out of it. I may as well say at once, however, that I never was out of it; for a man habitually ridden by the twin demons of imagination and observation is never—enough for his peace—out of anything. But I wanted to be able to apply to either, should anything happen, "'Thou canst not say I did it!'" What might in particular happen was represented by what I said to Brivet the first time he gave me a chance. It was what I had wished before the affair went further, but it had then already gone so far that he had been twice—as he immediately let me know—to see her at home. He clearly desired me to keep up with him, which I was eager to declare impossible; but he came again to see me only after he had called. Then I instantly made my point, which was that she was really, hang it! too good for his fell purpose.

"But, my dear man, my purpose is a sacred one. And if, moreover, she herself doesn't think she's too good"

"Ah," said I, "she's in love with you, and so it isn't fair."

He wondered. "Fair to me?"

"Oh, I don't care a button for you! What I'm thinking of is her risk."

"And what do you mean by her risk?"

"Why, her finding, of course, before you've done with her, that she can't do without you."

He met me as if he had quite thought of that. "Isn't it much more my risk?"

"Ah, but you take it deliberately, walk into it with 102