It promised to save trouble, for I should naturally have gone on with it if they had done their utmost to thwart me." He broke off abruptly, and Ida met his gaze.
"Thank you," she said.

"The honesty of that admission would have counted a good deal in your favor had the thing been possible." The man straightened himself and clenched one hand.
"Ah!" he said.

"Then it's quite out of the question ?" Ida saw the blood rise into his face, and noticed the sudden hardness in his eyes.

Her answer evidently had hurt him more than she expected, and she felt sorry for him.

The man's quietness and control and the absence of any dramatic protestation had a favorable effect on her, and she was almost certain that she could have married him had she met him a year earlier.