his happiness, Mike passed among the various crowd, which in its
listlessness seemed to balance and air itself like a many-petalled
flower. But much as the crowd amused and pleased him, he was more
amused and pleased with the present vision of his own personality,
which in a long train of images and stories passed within him. He
loved to dream of himself; in dreams he entered his soul like a
temple, seeing himself in various environment, and acting in manifold
circumstances.

"Here am I--a poor boy from the bogs of Ireland--poor people" (the
reflection was an unpleasant one, and he escaped from it); "at all
events a poor boy without money or friends. I have made myself what I
am.... I get the best of everything--women, eating, clothes; I live
in beautiful rooms surrounded with pretty things. True, they are not
mine, but what does that matter?--I haven't the bother of looking
after them.... If I could only get rid of that cursed accent, but I
haven't much; Escott has nearly as much, and he was brought up at an
English school. How pleasant it is to have money! Heigho! How
pleasant it is to have money! Six pounds a week from the paper, and I
could make easily another four if I chose. Sometimes I don't get any
presents; women seem as if they were going to chuck it up, and then
they send all things--money, jewelry, and comestibles. I am sure it
was Ida who sent that hundred pounds. What should I do if it ever
came out? But there's nothing to come out. I believe I am suspected,
but nothing can be proved against me.

"Why do they love me? I always treat them badly. Often I don't even
pretend to love them, but it makes no difference. Pious women, wicked
women, stupid women, clever women, high-class women, low-class women,
it is all the same--all love me. That little girl I picked up in the
Strand liked me before she had been talking to me five minutes. And
what sudden fancies! I come into a room, and every feminine eye fills
with sudden emotion. I wonder what it is. My nose is broken, and my
chin sticks out like a handle. And men like me just as much as women
do. It is inexplicable. True, I never say disagreeable things; and it
is so natural to me to wheedle. I twist myself about them like a
twining plant about a window. Women forgive me everything, and are
glad to see me after years. But they are never wildly jealous.
Perhaps I have never been really loved.... I don't know though--Lady
Seeley loved me. There was an old lady