"You look dead beat," he said later on, in his own particular and untidy
den, as he carefully stuffed the bowl of his pipe. "I think it would go
better with you, old chap, if you did not hold yourself in quite so
tight. I don't want you to rave or commit suicide in some untidy
fashion, as the hero of a French novel does; but you are as well-behaved
as a woman, without a woman's grand resources of hysterics and general
unreasonableness all round. You always were a little too good for human
nature's daily food. Your notions on some points are quite unwholesomely
superfine. It would be a comfort to see you let out in some way. I wish
you would have a real good fling for once."

"I should have to pay too dear for it afterwards. My superfine habits
are not a matter of choice only, you must remember."

"Oh!--the women! Not the best of them is worth bothering about, let
alone a shameless jilt."

"You were always hard upon her, George. She jilted a cripple for a very
fine specimen of the race. Some of your favourite physiologists would
say she was quite right."

"You never understood her, Lindy. It was not a case of jilting a cripple
at all. She jilted three thousand a year and a small place for ten
thousand a year and a big one."

After all, it did hurt a little, which Atherley must have divined, for
crossing the room on some pretext or another he let his strong hand
rest, just for an instant, gently upon my shoulder, thus, after the
manner of his race, mutely and concisely expressing affection and