She had heard that he was unscrupulous--vague
charges that he had never been able to repel--yet she was conscious now
of a secret wish to protect him from the consequences of his duplicity,
as she might have wished to protect an irresponsible child. Some
mysterious sense perception made her aware that beneath what appeared to
be discreditable public actions there was the simple bed-rock of
honesty. For the quality she felt in Vetch was a profound moral
integrity, an integrity which was bred by nature in the innermost fibre
of the man.
"If you will tell me--" she began, and checked herself with a sensation
of helplessness. After all, what could he tell her that she did not
know?
"I want to do what is right for her," he said abruptly. "I should hate
for her to be hurt."
While he talked it seemed to Corinna that she was living in some absurd
comedy, which mimicked life but was only acting, not reality. In her
world of reserves and implications no man would have dared to make
himself ridiculous by a visit like this.
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