a blunt but heavy weapon somewhere in the
regions of the heart. For the moment he felt that he could not read any
more. "Do you know the man?" He did not even ask what man in the
momentary sickness of his heart. Then he said to himself, almost
angrily, "Well!" and took up the letter again and read to the end.

Well! of course it was a thing that he knew might happen any day, and
which he had expected to happen for the last four or five years. It was
nothing to him one way or another. Nothing could be more absurd than
that a hearty and strong young man in the full tide of his life and with
a good breakfast before him should receive a shock from that innocent
little letter as if he had been a sentimental woman. But the fact is
that he pushed his plate away with an exclamation of disgust and a
feeling that everything was bad and uneatable. He drank his tea, though
that also became suddenly bad too, full of tannin, like tea that has
stood too long, a thing about which John was very particular. He had
been half an hour later than usual this morning consequent on having
been an hour or two later than usual last night. These things have their
reward, and that very speedily; but as for the letter, what could that
have to do with the bad toasting of the bacon and the tannin in the tea?
"Do you know the man?" There was a sort of covert insult, too, in the
phraseology, as if no explanation was needed, as if he must know by
instinct what she meant--he who knew nothing about it, who did not know
there was a man at all!

After a while he began to smile rather cynically to himself. He had got
up from the breakfast table, where everything was so bad, and had gone
to look out of one of the windows of his pleasant sitting-room. It was
in one of the wider ways of the Temple, and looked out upon various
houses with a pleasant misty light upon the redness of their old
brickwork, and a stretch of green grass and trees, which were scanty in
foliage, yet suited very well with the bright morning sun, which was not
particularly warm, but looked as if it were a good deal for effect and
not so very much for use. That thought floated across his mind with
others, and was of the same cynical complexion. It was very well for the
sun to shine, making the glistening poplars and plane-trees glow, and
warming all the mellow redness of the old houses, but what did he mean
by it? No warmth to speak of, only a fictitious gleam--a thing got up
for effect. An