many a woman of the world would have directed herself more
cautiously after reading that letter of his. Peak's impulse was to
thank her for the past, and declare that henceforth he would
dispense with aid; only the choking in his throat obstructed some
such utterance. He resented profoundly her supposition (natural
enough) that his chief aim was to establish himself in a
self-supporting career. What? Am I to be grateful for a mere chance
of earning my living? Have I not shown that I am capable of
something more than the ordinary lot in life? From the heights of
her assured independence, does she look down upon me as a young man
seeking a 'place'? He was filled with wrath, and all because a good,
commonplace woman could not divine that he dreamt of European fame.

'I am very sorry that I can't take that into account,' he managed to
say. 'I wish to give this next year exclusively to scientific study,
and after that I shall see what course is open to me.'

He was not of the men who can benefit by patronage, and be simply
grateful for it. His position was a false one: to be begging with
awkward show of thankfulness for a benefaction which in his heart he
detested. He knew himself for an undesigning hypocrite, and felt
that he might as well have been a rascal complete. Gratitude! No man
capable of it in fuller measure than he; but not to such persons as
Lady Whitelaw. Before old Sir Job he could more easily have bowed
himself. But this woman represented the superiority of mere brute
wealth, against which his soul rebelled.

There was another disagreeable silence, during which Lady Whitelaw
commented on her protege very much as Mrs. Warricombe had done.