wrath, and all because a good, commonplace woman could not
divine that he dreamt of European fame.
    »I am very sorry that I can't take that into account,« he managed to say. »I
wish to give this next year exclusively to scientific study, and after that I
shall see what course is open to me.«
    He was not of the men who can benefit by patronage, and be simply grateful
for it. His position was a false one: to be begging with awkward show of
thankfulness for a benefaction which in his heart he detested. He knew himself
for an undesigning hypocrite, and felt that he might as well have been a rascal
complete. Gratitude! No man capable of it in fuller measure than he; but not to
such persons as Lady Whitelaw. Before old Sir Job he could more easily have
bowed himself. But this woman represented the superiority of mere brute wealth,
against which his soul rebelled.
    There was another disagreeable silence, during which Lady Whitelaw commented
on her protégé very much as Mrs. Warricombe had done.
    »Will you allow me to ask,« she said at length, with cold politeness,
»whether you have acquaintances in London?«
    »Yes. I know some one who studied at the School of Mines.«
    »Well, Mr. Peak, I see that your mind is made up. And no doubt you are the
best judge of your private circumstances. I must ask you to let me think over
the matter for a day or two. I will write to you.«
    »And I to you,« thought Godwin; a resolve which enabled him to rise with
something like a conventional smile, and thus put an end to a very brief and
quite unsatisfactory interview.
    He strode homewards in a state of feverish excitement. His own behaviour had
been wretchedly clownish; he was only too well aware of that. He ought to have
put aside all the grosser aspects of his case, and have exhibited the purely
intellectual motives which made such a change as he purposed seem desirable to
him. That would have been to act with dignity; that would have been the very
best form of gratitude for the kindness he had received. But no, his accursed
lack of self-possession had ruined all. The woman was now offended in good
earnest; he saw it in her face at parting. The fault was admittedly on his side,
but what right had she to talk about something advantageous? She would write to
him, to be sure; that meant, she could not yet make up her mind