 the serene fearlessness of an
old woman who had escaped the blight of indifference. He had made for himself
the rule to receive everything of that sort in a silence which he took care from
policy and inclination not to make offensive. He had an affection for the aged
disciple of Michaelis, a complex sentiment depending a little on her prestige,
on her personality, but most of all on the instinct of flattered gratitude. He
felt himself really liked in her house. She was kindness personified. And she
was practically wise, too, after the manner of experienced women. She made his
married life much easier than it would have been without her generously full
recognition of his rights as Annie's husband. Her influence upon his wife, a
woman devoured by all sorts of small selfishnesses, small envies, small
jealousies, was excellent. Unfortunately, both her kindness and her wisdom were
of unreasonable complexion, distinctly feminine, and difficult to deal with. She
remained a perfect woman all along her full tale of years, and not as some of
them do become - a sort of slippery, pestilential old man in petticoats. And it
was as of a woman that he thought of her - the specially choice incarnation of
the feminine, wherein, is recruited the tender, ingenuous, and fierce bodyguard
for all sorts of men who talk under the influence of an emotion, true or
fraudulent; for preachers, seers, prophets, or reformers.
    Appreciating the distinguished and good friend of his wife, and himself, in
that way, the Assistant Commissioner became alarmed at the convict Michaelis'
possible fate. Once arrested on suspicion of being in some way, however remote,
a party to this outrage, the man could hardly escape being sent back to finish
his sentence at least. And that would kill him; he would never come out alive.
The Assistant Commissioner made a reflection extremely unbecoming his official
position without being really creditable to his humanity.
    »If the fellow is laid hold of again,« he thought, »she will never forgive
me.«
    The frankness of such a secretly outspoken thought could not go without some
derisive self-criticism. No man engaged in a work he does not like can preserve
many saving illusions about himself. The distaste, the absence of glamour,
extend from the occupation to the personality. It is only when our appointed
activities seem by a lucky accident to obey the particular earnestness of our
temperament that we can taste the comfort of complete self-deception. The
Assistant Commissioner did not like his work at home. The police work he had
been engaged on in a distant
