"You need not be afraid," he said. "I've seen enough of women to last me my life. If you were the only woman in the world, and the most beautiful, you would be safe enough for me. You may be quite easy, my dear."
She ceased to sob, but her voice was a little broken and husky when she spoke. "I'm very sorry," she said humbly. "I am afraid I have given you a vast deal of trouble, sir."
"Not so much as a woman has given me before this," he answered.
She looked at him furtively out of the tail of her eye, as a woman at that would be likely to look. And if the truth be told she felt, amid all her grief, an inclination to laugh. But with feminine tact she suppressed this. "And yet--and yet you came to help me?" she muttered.
He shrugged his shoulders. "One has to do certain things," he said.
"I am afraid somebody has--has behaved badly to you," she murmured; and she sighed.
Somehow the sigh flattered him. "As women generally behave," he replied with a sneer. "She lied to me, she cheated me, she robbed me, and she would have ruined me."
"And men don't do those things," she answered meekly, "to women." And she sighed again.
He started. It could not be that she was laughing at him. "Anyway, I have done with women," he said brusquely.
"Marry? Oh, I say nothing as to that," he answered contemptuously. "Marry I may, but it won't be for love. And 'twill be a lady anyway; I'll see to that. I'll know her father and her mother, and her grandfather and her grandmother," Tom continued. For poor Tom it was, much battered and weathered by a week spent on the verge of 'listing. "I'll have her pedigree by heart, and she shall bring her old nurse with her to speak for her, if marry I must. But no more ladies in distress for me. No more ladies picked up off the road, I thank you. That's all."
"You are frank, sir, at any rate," she said; and she laughed in a sort of wonder, taking it to herself.
At the sound, Tom, who had meant nothing personal, felt ashamed of himself. "I beg your pardon, my dear," he answered. "But--but I wished to put you at your ease. I wished to show you, you were safe with me; as your mistress would be."
"Oh, thank you," Betty answered. "For the matter of that, sir, I've had a lover myself, and said no to him, as well as my betters. But it wasn't before he asked me," she continued ironically. And she tossed her head again.