There was work to be done, and the work must be based on thought.

His thoughts must take a practical turn; what was he to do that would help Stephen?
Here there dawned on him for the first time the understanding of a certain humiliation which she had suffered; she had been refused! She who had stepped so far out of the path of maidenly reserve in which she had always walked as to propose marriage to a man, had been refused! He did not, could not, know to the full the measure of such humiliation to a woman; but he could guess at any rate a part.

And that guessing made him grind his teeth in impotent rage.
But out of that rage came an inspiration.

If Stephen had been humiliated by the refusal of one man, might not this be minimised if she in turn might refuse another?
Harold knew so well the sincerity of his own love and the depth of his own devotion that he was satisfied that he could not err in giving the girl the opportunity of refusing him.

It would be some sort of balm to her wounded spirit to know that Leonard's views were not shared by all men.