Should he--could he argue with her?
Could he show her, for instance, a letter, or parts of it, which he had received that very morning from poor Luke Preston, his old Eton and Oxford friend?
No!--it would be useless.

In her present mood she might treat it so as to rouse his own temper--let alone the unseemliness of the discussion it must raise between them.

Or should he give her a fairly full biography of Jim Donald, as he happened to know it?
He revolted against the notion, astonished to find how strong certain old-fashioned instincts still were in his composition.

And, after all, he had said a good deal the night before, at dinner, when Helena's invitation to a man he despised as a coward and a libertine had been first sprung upon him.

There really was only one way out.