ns on her fingers. Heaven forbid that I should say it unkindly!
It was touching to me at the time, for I knew how fearfully hard she
worked.'

'She nearly ruined your life; remember that.'

Jasper was silent.

'You will never confess it, and that is a fault in you.'

'She loved me, Amy.'

'Perhaps! as a school-girl loves. But you never loved her.'

'No.'

Amy examined his face as he spoke.

'Her image is very faint before me,' Jasper pursued, 'and soon I shall
scarcely be able to recall it. Yes, you are right; she nearly ruined
me. And in more senses than one. Poverty and struggle, under such
circumstances, would have made me a detestable creature. As it is, I am
not such a bad fellow, Amy.'

She laughed, and caressed his cheek.

'No, I am far from a bad fellow. I feel kindly to everyone who deserves
it. I like to be generous, in word and deed. Trust me, there's many
a man who would like to be generous, but is made despicably mean by
necessity. What a true sentence that is of Landor's: "It has been
repeated often enough that vice leads to misery; will no man declare
that misery leads to vice?" I have much of the weakness that might
become viciousness, but I am now far from the possibility of being
vicious. Of course there are men, like Fadge, who seem only to grow
meaner the more prosperous they are; but these are exceptions. Happiness
is the nurse of virtue.'

'And independence the root of happiness.'

'True. "The glorious privilege of being independent"--yes, Burns
understood the matter. Go to the piano, dear, and play me something.
If I don't mind, I shall fall into Whelpdale's vein, and talk about my
"blessedness". Ha! isn't the world a glorious place?'

'For rich people.'

'Yes, for rich people. How I pity the poor devils!--Play anything.
Better still if you will sing, my nightingale!'

So Amy first played and then sang, and Jasper lay back in dreamy bliss.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of New Grub Street, by George Gissing

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