unexpected conversation
with Franks was excellent; the foolish fellow seemed to have recovered
his common sense. But Will felt ashamed of himself. Of course he had
acted solely with a view to the other's good, seeing no hope but this
of rescuing Franks from the slough in which he wallowed; nevertheless,
he was stung with shame. For the first time in his life he had asked
repayment of money lent to a friend. And he had done the thing
blunderingly, without tact. For the purpose in view, it would have been
enough to speak of his own calamity; just the same effect would have
been produced on Franks. He saw this now, and writhed under the sense
of his grossness. The only excuse he could urge for himself was that
Franks' behaviour provoked and merited rough handling. Still, he might
have had perspicacity enough to understand that the artist was not so
sunk in squalor as he pretended.

"Just like me," he growled to himself, with a nervous twitching of the
face. "I've no presence of mind. I see the right thing when it's too
late, and when I've made myself appear a bounder. How many thousand
times have I blundered in this way! A man like me ought to live
alone--as I've a very fair chance of doing in future."

His walk did him no good, and on his return he passed a black evening.
With Mrs. Hopper, who came as usual to get dinner for him, he held
little conversation; in a few days he would have to tell her what had
befallen him, or invent some lie to account for the change in his
arrangements, and this again tortured Will's nerves. In one sense of
the word, no man was less pretentious; but his liberality of thought
and behaviour consisted with a personal pride which was very much at
the mercy of circumstance. Even as he could not endure subjection, so
did he shrink from the thought of losing dignity in the eyes of his
social inferiors. Mere poverty and lack of ease did not frighten him at
all; he had hardly given a thought as yet to that aspect of misfortune.
What most of all distressed his imagination (putting aside thought of
his mother and sister) was the sudden fall from a position of genial
authority, of beneficent command, with all the respect and gratitude
and consideration attaching thereto. He could do without personal
comforts, if need were, but it pained him horribly to think of being no
longer a patron and a master. With a good deal more philosophy than the
average man, and vastly more benevolence, he could not attain