sobbing.
`But we needn't let Clifford know, need we?' she pleaded. `It would
hurt him so. And if he never knows, never suspects, it hurts nobody.'
`Me!' he said, almost fiercely; `he'll know nothing from me! You see if
he does. Me give myself away! Ha! Ha!' he laughed hollowly, cynically, at
such an idea. She watched him in wonder. He said to her: `May I kiss your
hand arid go? I'll run into Sheffield I think, and lunch there, if I may,
and be back to tea. May I do anything for you? May I be sure you don't hate
me?---and that you won't?'---he ended with a desperate note of cynicism.
`No, I don't hate you,' she said. `I think you're nice.'
`Ah!' he said to her fiercely, `I'd rather you said that to me than
said you love me! It means such a lot more...Till afternoon then. I've
plenty to think about till then.' He kissed her hands humbly and was gone.
`I don't think I can stand that young man,' said Clifford at lunch.
`Why?' asked Connie.
`He's such a bounder underneath his veneer...just waiting to bounce
us.'
`I think people have been so unkind to him,' said Connie.
`Do you wonder? And do you think he employs his shining hours doing
deeds of kindness?'
`I think he has a certain sort of generosity.'
`Towards whom?'
`I don't quite know.'
`Naturally you don't. I'm afraid you mistake unscrupulousness for
generosity.'
Connie paused. Did she? It was just possible. Yet the unscrupulousness
of Michaelis had a certain fascination for her. He went whole lengths where
Clifford only crept a few timid paces. In his way he had conquered the
world, which was what Clifford wanted to do. Ways and means...? Were those
of Michaelis more despicable than those of Clifford? Was the way the poor
outsider had shoved and bounced himself forward in person, and by the back
doors, any worse than Clifford's way of advertising himself into prominence?
The bitch-goddess, Success, was trailed by thousands of gasping, dogs with
lolling tongues. The one that got her first was the real dog among dogs, if
you go by success! So Michaelis could keep his tail up.
The queer thing was, he didn't. He came back towards tea-time with a
large handful of violets and lilies, and the same hang-dog expression.
Connie wondered sometimes if it were a sort of mask to disarm opposition,
because it was almost too fixed. Was he really such a sad dog?
His sad-dog sort of extinguished self persisted all the evening, though
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