Beauchamp stared at the lines of the deck-planks.
His scheme to rescue Renee was right and good; but was he the man that should do it?
And was she, moreover, he thought--speculating on her bent head--the woman to be forced to brave the world with him, and poverty?
She gave him no sign.

He was assuredly not the man to pretend to powers he did not feel himself to possess, and though from a personal, and still more from a lover's, inability to see all round him at one time and accurately to weigh the forces at his disposal, he had gone far, he was not a wilful dreamer nor so very selfish a lover.

The instant his consciousness of a superior strength failed him he acknowledged it.
Renee did not look up.

She had none of those lightnings of primitive energy, nor the noble rashness and reliance on her lover, which his imagination had filled her with; none.

That was plain.