Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/119

Rh pleasure she gets, an’ there’s all the hours whilst I’m away. You see she don’t take much to Mrs. Eagles; that ain’t her sort of friend. Not as she’s got any pride left about her, poor girl! don’t think that. I tell you, Sidney, she’s a dear good girl to her old father. If I could only see her a bit happier, I’d never grumble again as long as I lived, I wouldn’t!”

Is there such a thing in this world as speech that has but one simple interpretation, one for him who utters it and for him who hears? Honester words were never spoken than these in which Hewett strove to represent Clara in a favourable light, and to show the pitifulness of her situation; yet he himself was conscious that they implied a second meaning, and Sidney was driven restlessly about the room by his perception of the same lurking motive in their pathos. John felt half-ashamed of himself when he ceased; it was a new thing for him to be practising subtleties with a view to his own ends. But had he said a word more than the truth?

I suppose it was the association of contrast that turned Sidney’s thoughts to Joseph Snowdon. At all events it was of him he was