"But why have you asked, father? Why has Mr. St. Vincent been raised?
I have been friends with other men."
"But I have not felt about other men as I do of St. Vincent. We may be
truthful, you and I, and forgive the pain we give each other. My
opinion counts for no more than another's. Fallibility is the
commonest of curses. Nor can I explain why I feel as I do--I oppose
much in the way you expect to when your great white flash sears your
eyes. But, in a word, I do not like St. Vincent."
"A very common judgment of him among the men," Frona interposed, driven
irresistibly to the defensive.
"Such consensus of opinion only makes my position stronger," he
returned, but not disputatively. "Yet I must remember that I look upon
him as men look. His popularity with women must proceed from the fact
that women look differently than men, just as women do differ
physically and spiritually from men. It is deep, too deep for me to
explain. I but follow my nature and try to be just."
"But have you nothing more definite?" she asked, groping for better
comprehension of his attitude. "Can you not put into some sort of
coherence some one certain thing of the things you feel?"
"I hardly dare. Intuitions can rarely be expressed in terms of
thought. But let me try. We Welses have never known a coward. And
where cowardice is, nothing can endure.
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