I am wondering why." She spoke obviously without any wish to hurt.

Yet the words did hurt.

She saw Thresk redden as she uttered them, and a swift wild hope flamed like a rose in her heart: if this man with the brains and the money and the perseverance sitting at her side should turn out to be the Perseus for her beautiful chained Andromeda, far away there in the state of Chitipur! The lines of a poem came into her thoughts.
"I know; the world proscribes not love, Allows my finger to caress Your lips' contour and downiness Provided it supplies the glove." Suppose that here at her side was the man who would dispense with the glove! She looked again at Thresk.

The lean strong face suggested that he might, if he wanted hard enough.

All her life had been passed in the support of authority and law.