You must take whatever view seems to you the
natural one.'
John, having finished his cigarette, rose.
'The natural view is an uncommonly disagreeable one,' he said.
'However, I have no intention of quarrelling with you. I'll only
just say that, as I take a share in the expenses of my mother's
house, this question decidedly concerns me; and I'll add that I
think it ought to concern you a good deal more than it seems to.'
Reardon, ashamed already of his violence, paused upon these
remarks.
'It shall,' he uttered at length, coldly. 'You have put it
clearly enough to me, and you shan't have spoken in vain. Is
there anything else you wish to say?'
'Thank you; I think not.'
They parted with distant civility, and Reardon closed the door
behind his visitor.
He knew that his character was seen through a distorting medium
by Amy's relatives, to some extent by Amy herself; but hitherto
the reflection that this must always be the case when a man of
his kind is judged by people of the world had strengthened him in
defiance. An endeavour to explain himself would be maddeningly
hopeless; even Amy did not understand aright the troubles through
which his intellectual and moral nature was passing, and to speak
of such experiences to Mrs Yule or to John would be equivalent to
addressing them in alien tongues; he and they had no common
criterion by reference to which he could make himself
intelligible.
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