He could not explain to Dormer Colville his reason for refusing.
"Outright ?" inquired Colville, deep in thought.
"Yes." Colville turned and glanced at him sideways, though it was too dark to see his face.
"I should have thought," he said, tentatively, after a while, "that it would have been wise to accept.

A bird in the hand, you know--a damned big bird! And then afterwards you could see what turned up." "You mean I could break my word later on," inquired Barebone, with that odd downrightness which at times surprised Colville and made him think of Captain Clubbe.
"Well, you know," he explained, with a tolerant laugh, "in politics it often turns out that a man's duty is to break his word--duty toward his party, and his country, and that sort of thing." Which was plausible enough, as many eminent politicians seem to have found in these later times.
"I dare say it may be so," answered Barebone, "but I refused outright, and there is an end to it." For now that he was brought face to face with the situation, shorn of side issues and set squarely before him, he envisaged it clearly enough.
He did not want fifty thousand pounds.

He had only wanted the money for a moment because the thought leapt into his mind that fifty thousand pounds meant Miriam.

Then he saw that little contemptuous smile tilting the corner of her lips, and he had no use for a million.
If he could not have Miriam, he would be King of France.

It is thus that history is made, for those who make it are only men.