"How can you make such low suggestions? The man was not a scoundrel at heart: at least he had always passed for a gentleman before, and thought himself such."
"For one who goes about insulting ladies, he was a singularly modest youth. So he never thought afterwards that there might have been a basis of fact for the fancy that made the trouble?"
"Drop the subject, will you? I brought it in merely as an illustration, that you might see how a man can be affected—even his character changed—by the recollection of such a blunder. It would destroy his self-respect."
"Naturally. But self-respect is too good a thing to lose forever, and this illustration of yours may serve to pass the time till you are ready to talk of your own affairs, which you say it somehow illustrates. Did your friend never think that the girl might have led him on, either seriously or for mere amusement? If she did, that would be some excuse for him."
"I tell you he was not that kind of a blackguard. All sorts of thoughts will offer themselves to a man in such a state of mind, I suppose; but he knew her too well to admit any that lowered her. O no, he saw the fault was all his. At the moment he was bewildered, and could not realize the sudden change, nor what he had done; so his apology (if I remember that part of his story) may have been inadequate in manner, however suitable in words. Apart from that, which could not be mended afterwards, he did all he possibly could."
"I beg to differ, Jim. I think this fellow did much worse than you seem to realize. Stare as much as you like: if he is still a friend of yours, I am sorry for him, as for one who has committed a most outrageous blunder and a nearly unpardonable wrong. What right had he to think of himself alone? You say the girl had shown goodness of heart, and a real interest in him? Then suppose the interest went no further than he thought: what business had he to burden her mind with a broken friendship and the feeling that she had helped to spoil his life? Or suppose the interest in him did go further. What do you and he know about a woman's feelings?"
He was pale now, and wild in the eyes. "Your last supposition is impossible. For the other—you may possibly be right. He never thought she would care—or that he could do anything but what he did."
"A nice lot he is then. If I were you, I would write to him to-morrow and give him a lecture—supposing they are both alive and free. And if this affair was anyway parallel to your own, of which you won't talk, I hope it may be a lesson to you—a warning, if you need one. Do you suppose women, of the high-minded and superior sort, have no hearts, no consciences, no sense of the duties of humanity? They have a blanked sight more than you and your friend seem to have, I can tell you. You'd better sleep on this, and wake with some enlarged ideas. As you decline to tell me anything of yourself, and so I can't help you there, I'm going to bed."