 speak ingenuously, and he wished to note the effect upon Marian of
what he said. There were two beliefs in him: on the one hand, he recognised
Fadge in every line of the writing; on the other, he had a perverse satisfaction
in convincing himself that it was Milvain who had caught so successfully the
master's manner. He was not the kind of man who can resist an opportunity of
justifying, to himself and others, a course into which he has been led by
mingled feelings, all more or less unjustifiable.
    »How should Jedwood know?« asked Marian.
    Yule shrugged his shoulders.
    »As if these things didn't get about among editors and publishers!«
    »In this case, there's a mistake.«
    »And why, pray?« His voice trembled with choler. »Why need there be a
mistake?«
    »Because Mr Milvain is quite incapable of reviewing your book in such a
spirit.«
    »There is your mistake, my girl. Milvain will do anything that's asked of
him, provided he's well enough paid.«
    Marian reflected. When she raised her eyes again they were perfectly calm.
    »What has led you to think that?«
    »Don't I know the type of man? Noscitur ex sociis - have you Latin enough
for that?«
    »You'll find that you are misinformed,« Marian replied, and therewith went
from the room.
    She could not trust herself to converse longer. A resentment such as her
father had never yet excited in her - such, indeed, as she seldom, if ever,
conceived - threatened to force utterance for itself in words which would change
the current of her whole life. She saw her father in his worst aspect, and her
heart was shaken by an unnatural revolt from him. Let his assurance of what he
reported be ever so firm, what right had he to make this use of it? His
behaviour was spiteful. Suppose he entertained suspicions which seemed to make
it his duty to warn her against Milvain, this was not the way to go about it. A
father actuated by simple motives of affection would never speak and look thus.
    It was the hateful spirit of literary rancour that ruled him; the spirit
that made people eager to believe all evil, that blinded and maddened. Never had
she felt so strongly the unworthiness of the existence to which she was
condemned. That contemptible review, and now her father's ignoble passion - such
things were enough to make all literature appear a morbid excrescence upon human
life
