'Have a cigarette?' said Yule, holding out a box of them.
'No, thank you; I don't smoke so early.'
'Then I'll light one myself; it always makes talk easier to me.
You're on the point of moving, I suppose?'
'Yes, I am.'
Reardon tried to speak in quite a simple way, with no admission
of embarrassment. He was not successful, and to his visitor the
tone seemed rather offensive.
'I suppose you'll let Amy know your new address?'
'Certainly. Why should I conceal it?'
'No, no; I didn't mean to suggest that. But you might be taking
it for granted that--that the rupture was final, I thought.'
There had never been any intimacy between these two men. Reardon
regarded his wife's brother as rather snobbish and disagreeably
selfish; John Yule looked upon the novelist as a prig, and now of
late as a shuffling, untrustworthy fellow. It appeared to John
that his brother-in-law was assuming a manner wholly
unjustifiable, and he had a difficulty in behaving to him with
courtesy. Reardon, on the other hand, felt injured by the turn
his visitor's remarks were taking, and began to resent the visit
altogether.
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