Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/371

 truth. But the real reason I wanted to is that—well, that, after all, you're so nice!"

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Just that. The insulting truth only covers a little of you. The insulting truth about me, for instance, is that I've been a self-centred, bad-mannered, evil-tempered, little shrew—but, dear me! that was only a little of me. So's your literary hauteur, or your New Yorkishness, or whatever it is, only a little of you. What the rest of you is, I know from the beautiful way you've stood my insults. I know you're really a very gentle, chivalrous, fine person just deluded into the likeness of a cold-hearted snob. You made me furious because you had that Arab eye: I wanted to shake you and to shout at you, 'Good heavens, you ingrowing blind Mr. Ogle, don't you realize that the rest of us are part of humanity? Do you think you're not? Don't you know that we're all the same person really, and that you're only a little of all of it?' You see it was because I knew you were really so much nicer than you seemed that I was enraged with you. That's what I vowed to tell you, if I ever met you again, Mr. Ogle, because I owed you a debt of gratitude. Can you bear my having paid it?"