rd him by virtue of a social position hopeless of attainment by any
of them?

Who were they to turn on him like this when he had every reason to
suppose they were not only aware of the great talent he had carelessly
neglected to cultivate through all these years, but must, in the secret
recesses of their grubby souls, reluctantly admire his disdain of the
only distinctions they scrambled for and could ever hope for?

His black looks seemed to disturb nobody; Bunn, self-centred, cropped
his salad complacently; the Vandyck beards wagged; another critic or
two left, stern slaves to duty and paid ads.

* * * * *

The lights bothered him; tremors crawled over and over his skin; within
him a dull rage was burning--a rage directed at no one thing, but which
could at any moment be focussed.

Men rose and left the table singly, by twos, in groups. He sat,
glowering, head partly averted, scowlingly aware of their going, aware
of their human interest in one another but not in him, aware at last
that he counted for nothing whatever among them.

Some spoke to him as they passed out; he made them no answer. And at
last he was alone.

Reaching for his empty glass, he miscalculated the distance between it
and his quivering fingers; it fell and broke to pieces. When the waiter
came he cursed him, flung a bill at him, got up, demanded his coat and
hat, swore at the pallid, little, button-covered page who brought it,
and lurched out into the street.

A cab stood there; he entered it, fell heavily into a corner of the
seat, bade the driver, "Keep going, damn you!" and sat swaying,
muttering, brooding on the wrongs that the world had done him.

Wrongs! Yes, by God! Every hand was against him, every tongue slandered
him. Who was he that he should endure it any longer in patience! Had he
not been patient? Had he not submitted to the insults of a fool of a
doctor?--had he not stayed his hand from punishing Dumont's red and
distended face?--had he not silently accepted the insolent retorts of
these Grub Street literati who turned on him and flouted the talent that
lay dormant in him--dead, perhaps--but dead or dormant, it still
matched theirs! And they knew it, damn them!

Had he not stood enough from the rotten world?--from his own sister, who
had flung his honour into his face with impunity!--from Dysart, whose
maddening and continual ignoring of his letters demanding an
explanation----

There seem