after all.  For Ellen looked like an angry queen as well as an angry angel.  It seemed possible that these young people were not only going to have a mansion in heaven, but would have a large house on earth as well, and these two establishments made his single establishment in Moray Place seem not so satisfactory as he had always thought it.  These people were going to take their fill of beauty and delight and all the unchafferable things he had denied himself that he might pursue success, and they were going to take their fill of success too!  It was not fair.  He thought of their good fortune in being born strong and triumphant as if it were a piece of rapacity, and tried to wriggle out of this moment which compelled him to regard them with respect by reversing the intentional, enjoyed purity of relationship with her and finding a lewd amusement in the fierceness which was so plainly an aspect of desire.  But that meant moving outside the orbit of dignity; and he knew that when a man does that he gives himself for ever into the hands of those who behold him.  So he worked back to the position of the rich, kind old man stooping to protect the little helpless working-girl.

He pushed the box of sweets across the table, and said in a tender and offended voice, “You’re not eating your sweets, Nelly.  I hoped to give you pleasure when I bought them.”

One would always get her that way.

Someone was being hurt.  Immediately she had the soft breast of the dove.  “Oh, Mr. James!”

“I wish I could give you more pleasure,” he went on.  “But there!  I’ve been able to do little enough for you.  Well do I know it”

“You’ve done a lot for me.  You’ve been so good.”

“It’s a pity we should have fallen out over a stranger.  But I know I am too free with my tongue.”

“Oh, Mr. James!”

“Never mind, lassie.  I’m only an old man, and you’re young; you must go your own way—­”

“Oh, Mr. James!” She rose and ran round the table to his side; and at the close sight of her, excited and yet muted with pity, brilliant as sunset but soft as light rain, the honest thing in him forgot the spurious scene he was carpentering.  He exclaimed solemnly, “Nelly, you are very beautiful.”

She was startled.  “Me, beautiful?”

“Aye,” he said, “beautiful.”

For a moment she pondered over it almost stupidly.  Then she put her hand on Mr. James’s shoulder and shook him; now that her sexual feelings were focussed on one man she treated all other men with a sexless familiarity that to those who did not understand might have seemed shameless and a little mad.  “Am I beautiful?” she asked searchingly.

“How many times do you want me to say it?” he said.

“But how beautiful?” she pursued.  “Like a picture in the National Gallery?  Or like one of those actresses?  Now isn’t that a queer thing?  I’m all for art as a general thing, but I’d much rather be like an actress.  Tell me, which am I like?”