«
    »As I talk to everyone. You have heard me say the same things many a time. I
simply declare my opinion that the end of literary work - unless one is a man of
genius - is to secure comfort and repute. This doesn't seem to me very
scandalous. But Mrs Reardon was perhaps too urgent in repeating such views to
her husband. She saw that in my case they were likely to have solid results, and
it was a misery to her that Reardon couldn't or wouldn't work in the same
practical way.«
    »It was very unfortunate.«
    »And you are inclined to blame me?«
    »No; because I am so sure that you only spoke in the way natural to you,
without a thought of such consequences.«
    Jasper smiled.
    »That's precisely the truth. Nearly all men who have their way to make think
as I do, but most feel obliged to adopt a false tone, to talk about literary
conscientiousness, and so on. I simply say what I think, with no pretences. I
should like to be conscientious, but it's a luxury I can't afford. I've told you
all this often enough, you know.«
    »Yes.«
    »But it hasn't been morally injurious to you,« he said with a laugh.
    »Not at all. Still I don't like it.«
    Jasper was startled. He gazed at her. Ought he, then, to have dealt with her
less frankly? Had he been mistaken in thinking that the unusual openness of his
talk was attractive to her? She spoke with quite unaccustomed decision; indeed,
he had noticed from her entrance that there was something unfamiliar in her way
of conversing. She was so much more self-possessed than of wont, and did not
seem to treat him with the same deference, the same subdual of her own
personality.
    »You don't like it?« he repeated calmly. »It has become rather tiresome to
you?«
    »I feel sorry that you should always represent yourself in an unfavourable
light.«
    He was an acute man, but the self-confidence with which he had entered upon
this dialogue, his conviction that he had but to speak when he wished to receive
assurance of Marian's devotion, prevented him from understanding the tone of
independence she had suddenly adopted. With more modesty he would have felt more
subtly at this juncture, would have divined that the girl had an exquisite
pleasure in drawing back now that she saw
