ld out the intimate welcome of its lamp and fire.
Everything in it exhaled the same sense of peace and stability which,
two evenings before, had lulled him to complacent meditation. His
armchair again invited him from the hearth, but he was too agitated to
sit still, and with sunk head and hands clasped behind his back he began
to wander up and down the room.

His five minutes with Sophy Viner had flashed strange lights into the
shadowy corners of his consciousness. The girl's absolute candour,
her hard ardent honesty, was for the moment the vividest point in his
thoughts. He wondered anew, as he had wondered before, at the way in
which the harsh discipline of life had stripped her of false sentiment
without laying the least touch on her pride. When they had parted, five
months before, she had quietly but decidedly rejected all his offers
of help, even to the suggestion of his trying to further her theatrical
aims: she had made it clear that she wished their brief alliance to
leave no trace on their lives save that of its own smiling memory. But
now that they were unexpectedly confronted in a situation which seemed,
to her terrified fancy, to put her at his mercy, her first impulse was
to defend her right to the place she had won, and to learn as quickly
as possible if he meant to dispute it. While he had pictured her as
shrinking away from him in a tremor of self-effacement she had watched
his movements, made sure of her opportunity, and come straight down to
"have it out" with him. He was so struck by the frankness and energy of
the proceeding that for a moment he lost sight of the view of his own
character implied in it.

"Poor thing...poor thing!" he could only go on saying; and with the
repetition of the words the picture of himself as she must see him
pitiably took shape again.

He understood then, for the first time, how vague, in comparison with
hers, had been his own vision of the part he had played in the brief
episode of their relation. The incident had left in him a sense of
exasperation and self-contempt, but that, as he now perceived, was
chiefly, if not altogether, as it bore on his preconceived ideal of his
attitude toward another woman. He had fallen below his own standard of
sentimental loyalty, and if he thought of Sophy Viner it was mainly
as the chance instrument of his lapse. These considerations were not
agreeable to his pride, but they were forced on him by the example of
her valiant common-se