you need. I don't mind, really. It 's all in a life-time, and I knew when I went in for this business, that I should have to take the rough with the smooth. I was down on my luck, and glad to get anything. What I have got is honest, and something that I know I can do well—something I enjoy, too; and I 'm not going to let a vulgar young snob like that make me ashamed of myself, when I 've nothing to be ashamed of."
"You ought to be proud of yourself, not ashamed!" I cried to him, trying to keep my eyes cold.
"Heaven knows there 's little enough to be proud of. You 'd see that, if I bored you with my history—and perhaps I will some day. But anyhow, I 've nothing which I need to hide."
"As if I did n't know that! But Bertie hates you."
"I don't much blame him for that. In a way, the position in which we stand to each other is a kind of poetical justice. I don't blame myself, either, for I always did loathe a cad and Stokes is a cad par excellence. He visited, more or less on suffrance, at two or three houses where I used to go a good deal, in my palmy days. How he got asked, originally, I don't exactly know, for the people were n't a bit his sort; but money does a lot for a man in these days; and once in, he was n't easy to get rid of. He had a crawling way with any one he hoped to squeeze any advantage out of ⸺"
"I suppose he crawled to you then," I broke in.
"He did try it on, a bit, because I knew people he wanted to know; but it did n't work. I rather put myself out to be rude to him, for I resented a fellow like that worming himself into places where he had no earthly
