Page:Gissing - The Emancipated, vol. I, 1890.djvu/126

118 "No, no, Miriam; I haven't quite got to that. You are the very last person I should think of in such a case.

"Why?"

"Simply because I am not quite so contemptible as you think me. I don't quarrel with my sister, and come back after some years to make it up just because I want to make a demand on her purse."

"You haven't accustomed me to credit you with high motives, Reuben."

"No. And I have never succeeded in making you understand me. I suppose it's hopeless that you ever will. We are too different. You regard me as a vulgar reprobate, who by some odd freak of nature happens to be akin to you. I can picture so well what your imagination makes of me. All the instances of debauchery and general blackguardism that the commerce of life forced upon your knowledge go towards completing the ideal. It's a pity. I have always felt that you and I might have been a deal to each other if you had had