“I am engaged to him,” said Eleanor quietly--with a look that ludicrously mingled pride and fear and apology.
Sayler shrugged his shoulders. “An impulse you’ve repented,” said he.
“I think I must have been crazy,” said she.
“I think _he_ must have been crazy,” retorted Sayler. “But he has come to his senses. He’s here to release you.”
“He was caught for the moment by your looks,” Sayler went on, with quick raillery. “But he is too intelligent to be ruled by such an impulse. Shallow men are, but not such men as George Helm. They assign women their proper place in the life of a man with something to do in the world and the ability to do it.” Sayler’s raillery veered to a sarcasm none the less stinging for its cloak of politeness and good humor. “_You_ sized _him_ up--and accepted him. As soon as _he_ sized _you_ up--you under the glamor of that charming exterior of yours and that very deceptive cleverness--as soon as he saw _you_, he wanted to release you.”
The girl’s beautiful face, frankly expressing her emotions, gave Sayler the pleasure of delighting in his skill as a player upon that interesting instrument, human nature. A woman--especially a young woman--brought up in the false education custom imposes upon our comfortable classes, rarely has the intelligence clearly to distinguish a formable man in his early formative period. Or, if her woman’s instinct for the real thing in manhood does by chance lead her aright, the courage to act is lacking. Eleanor had seen the man in George Helm--a degree, a kind even, of manliness which she recognized as unique. But she had acted upon, had yielded to only his peculiar, his irresistible physical charm for her. Who, looking at his rough and rugged exterior and hers so fine and delicate, would have suspected the possibility of the existence of such a charm? She would not have admitted to any one--least of all to herself--that the male exterior that best pleased her was not the “polished gentleman,” the flower of culture, but one exactly its opposite--primitive, rough of skin, direct and crude of manner. If Helm had been brutal she would have loathed him. But he was so gentle and tender--and what wonderful eyes, and what a magic voice!