It seemed as if that stray phrase of hers had taken away all the sting of the desire.

She expected him to act as a gentleman; then her expectations should be fulfilled to the letter.

The woman who moved him to the deepest force of his nature, was she who knew the brute, not the gentleman in him, and bowed herself in supine submission.

And as he stood and watched her there, slowly creeping back through the faintest tinges of colour to consciousness, he little imagined that Sally was the very woman who would so yield herself rather than lose him from her life.
At last she opened her eyes, the dazed, wondering stare that comes after the period of forced unconsciousness.
"Where--where am I ?" she whispered.
"Here--my rooms--you fainted." "Fainted?
Why ?" "I don't know;" he knelt down beside her, all tenderness and apology.
"The fight, I suppose; we were looking on at that fight outside, at the back.

I never thought--I was a brute--it never entered my head for a moment.