"Your gratitude would be of no value to me whatever," he assured
her.

She was still not wholly satisfied. His complete stolidity
frustrated every effort she made to penetrate beneath the
surface.

"If I believed," she went on, "that you were one of those men--
the world is full of them, you know--who will help a woman with a
reasonable appearance so long as it does not seriously interfere
with their own comfort--"

"Your sex has nothing whatever to do with it," he interrupted.
"As to your appearance, I have not even considered it. I could
not tell you whether you are beautiful or ugly--I am no judge of
these matters. What I have done, I have done because it pleased
me to do it."

"Do you always do what pleases you?" she asked.

"Nearly always."

She looked him over again attentively, with an interest obviously
impersonal, a trifle supercilious.

"I suppose," she remarked, "you consider yourself one of the
strong people of the world?"

"I do not know about that," he answered. "I do not often think