"Yes. I suppose such a person is not normal. In them, hurt pride is more serious than a wound of the flesh. And pride, mortally wounded, means to them mental and finally physical death."
"Such a person is abnormal and predestined to unhappiness," said Cleland impatiently.
"Predestined," repeated Grismer in his pleasant, even voice. "Yes, there's something wrong with them. But they are born so. Nobody knows what a mental hell they endure. Things that others would scarcely notice they shrink from. Their souls are raw, quivering things within them that agonize over a careless slight, that wither under disapproval, that become paralyzed under an affront.
"Their fiercest, deepest, most vital desire is to be welcomed, approved, respected. Without kindness they become deformed; and crippled pride does strange, perverse things to their brain and tongue.
"There are such people, Cleland.... Predestined ... to suffering and to annihilation.... Weaklings ... all heart and unprotected nerves ... passing their brief lives in desperate and grotesque attempts to conceal what they are.... Superfluous people, undesirable ... foredoomed."
He dropped his cigarette upon the drenched grass, whore it glimmered an instant and went out.
"Cleland," he said in a singularly gentle voice, "I once told you that I wished you well. You did not understand. Let me put it a little plainer.... Is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything I can refrain from doing which might add to your contentment?"
"That's an odd thing to ask," returned the other.
"No. It is merely friendship speaking—a very deep friendship, if you can understand it."
"You're very kind, Grismer.... I don't know quite how to take it—or how to answer. There is nothing that you can do for me—nothing one man could ask of another——"