There was a long silence.
"John," said Lord Frederick at last, not without a certain dignity, "the world is as it is. We did not make it, and we are not responsible for it. If there is any one who set it going, it is his own look out. Reproach him, if you can find him. All we have to do is to live in it. And we can't live in it, I tell you we can't exist in it, with any comfort until we realize that it is rotten to the core."
John was leaning against the window-sill shaking like a reed. It seemed to him that for one awful moment he had been in hell.
"I do not pretend to be better than other men," continued Lord Frederick. "Men and women are men and women; and if you persist in thinking them angels, especially the latter, you will pay for your mistake."
"I am paying," said John.
"Possibly. You seem to have sustained a shock. It is incredible to me that you did not know beforehand what the letters told you. Wedding-rings don't make a greater resemblance between father and son than there is between you and me."
Lord Frederick looked at the stooping figure of the young man, leaning spent and motionless against the window, his arms hanging by his sides. He held what he called his prudishness in contempt, but he respected an element in him which he would have termed "grit."
"You are stronger built than I am, John," he said, with a touch of pride, "and wider in the chest. Come, bygones are bygones. Shake hands."
"I can't," said John. "I don't know that I could on my account, but anyhow not on hers."
"H'm! And so this was the information which you rushed in without leave to spring upon me?"