chapter ii
The young man shut the door with a sharper slam than any visitor had used that afternoon,
and walked up the street at a great pace, cutting the air with his walking–stick. He was
glad to find himself outside that drawing–room, breathing raw fog, and in contact with
unpolished people who only wanted their share of the pavement allowed them. He thought
that if he had had Mr. or Mrs. or Miss Hilbery out here he would have made them,
somehow, feel his superiority, for he was chafed by the memory of halting awkward
sentences which had failed to give even the young woman with the sad, but inwardly
ironical eyes a hint of his force. He tried to recall the actual words of his little outburst,
and unconsciously supplemented them by so many words of greater expressiveness that
the irritation of his failure was somewhat assuaged. Sudden stabs of the unmitigated truth
assailed him now and then, for he was not inclined by nature to take a rosy view of his
conduct, but what with the beat of his foot upon the pavement, and the glimpse which
half–drawn curtains offered him of kitchens, dining–rooms, and drawing–rooms,
illustrating with mute power different scenes from different lives, his own experience lost
its sharpness.
His own experience underwent a curious change. His speed slackened, his head sank a little towards his breast, and the lamplight shone now and again upon a face grown strangely tranquil. His thought was so absorbing that when it became necessary to verify the name of a street, he looked at it for a time before he read it; when he came to a crossing, he seemed to have to reassure himself
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