Ford smiled—­his odd, twisted smile—­but as he said nothing, Conquest decided to let the subject drop.  He had, in fact, gone as far as his present judgment would carry him, and anything farther might lead to a false step.  In a situation alive with claims and counter-claims, with yearnings of the heart and promptings of the higher law, he could preserve his rights only by a walk as wary as the treading of a tight-rope.

This became clearer to him later in the night, when Ford had gone away, and he was left free to review the circumstances with that clarity of co-ordination he had so often brought to bear on other men’s affairs.  Out of the mass of data he selected two conditions as being the only ones of importance.

If Miriam Strange was marrying him because she loved him, nothing else needed to be considered.  This fact would subordinate everything to itself; and there were many arguments to support the assumption that she was doing so.  One by one he marshalled them before him, from the first faint possibility up to the crowning proof that there was no earthly reason for her marrying him at all, unless she wanted to.  He had pointed that out to her clearly, on the day when she came to him to make her terms.  He had been guilty on that occasion of a foolish generosity, for that it went with a common-sense honesty to take advantage of another’s ignorance, or impulsiveness, was part of his business creed.  Nevertheless, having shown her this uncalled-for favor, he did not regret it now, since it put the spontaneous, voluntary nature of her act beyond dispute.

To a late hour of the night he wandered about the great silent rooms of the house which he had made the expression of himself.  Stored with costly, patiently selected comforts, it lacked only the last requisite which was to impart the living touch.  Having chosen this essential with so much care, and begun to feel for her something far more vital than the pride of possession which had been his governing emotion hitherto, it was an agony with many aspects to think he might have to let her go.

That there was this possibility was undeniable.  It was the second of the two paramount considerations.  Though Ford’s enthusiasm tried to make itself enthusiasm and no more, there had been little difficulty in seeing what it was.  All the same, it would be a passion to pity and ignore, if on Miriam’s side there was nothing to respond to it.  But it was here that, in spite of all his arguments, Conquest’s doubts began.  With much curious ignorance of women, there was a point of view from which he knew them well.  It was out of many a poignant bit of domestic history, of which his profession had made him the confidant, that he had distilled the observation made to Ford earlier in the evening:  “It isn’t often that a woman’s heroism works in a straight line, like a soldier’s or a fireman’s.”  Notwithstanding her directness, he could see Miriam Strange as just the type of woman to whom these words