“I’m sorry it looks to you like that,” said Richard.
“Oh, don’t apologise,” said Jack, with a faint, but even more malevolent smile. “It’s pretty well always the same. You come out from the old countries very cocksure, with a lot of criticism to you. But when it comes to doing anything, you sort of fade out, you’re nowhere. We’re used to it, we don’t mind.”
There was a silence of hate.
“No, we don’t mind,” Jack continued. “It’s quite right, you haven’t let us down, because we haven’t given you a chance. That’s all. In so far as you’ve had any chance to, you’ve let us down, and we know it.”
Richard was silent. Perhaps it was true. And he hated such a truth.
“All right,” he said. “I’ve let you down. I suppose I shall have to admit it. I’m sorry—but I can’t help myself.”
Jack took not the slightest notice of this admission, sat as if he had not heard it.
“I’m sorry I’ve sort of fizzled out so quickly,” said Richard. “But you wouldn’t have me pretend, would you? I’d better be honest at the beginning.”
Jack looked at him slowly, with slow, inchoate eyes, and a look of contempt on his face. The contempt on Jack’s face, the contempt of the confident he-man for the shifty she-man, made Richard flush with anger, and drove him back on his deeper self once more.
“What do you call honest?” said Jack, sneering.