Helen has chosen the fleshpots of Egypt.

You have chosen a lonelier and higher path....

And here I am in your little parlor asking you to marry me." "No, no, no! Daren, don't, I beg of you--don't talk to me this way," she besought him.
"Mel, it's a difference of opinion that makes arguments, wars and other things," he said, with a cruelty in strange antithesis to the pity and tenderness he likewise felt.

He could hurt her.

He had power over her.