Who the devil were these rag-tags and bob-tails of the world who presumed to snub him—­these restaurant-haunting outsiders, among whom he condescended to sit, feeling always the subtle flattery they ought to accord him by virtue of a social position hopeless of attainment by any of them?

Who were they to turn on him like this when he had every reason to suppose they were not only aware of the great talent he had carelessly neglected to cultivate through all these years, but must, in the secret recesses of their grubby souls, reluctantly admire his disdain of the only distinctions they scrambled for and could ever hope for?

His black looks seemed to disturb nobody; Bunn, self-centred, cropped his salad complacently; the Vandyck beards wagged; another critic or two left, stern slaves to duty and paid ads.

* * * * *

The lights bothered him; tremors crawled over and over his skin; within him a dull rage was burning—­a rage directed at no one thing, but which could at any moment be focussed.

Men rose and left the table singly, by twos, in groups.  He sat, glowering, head partly averted, scowlingly aware of their going, aware of their human interest in one another but not in him, aware at last that he counted for nothing whatever among them.

Some spoke to him as they passed out; he made them no answer.  And at last he was alone.

Reaching for his empty glass, he miscalculated the distance between it and his quivering fingers; it fell and broke to pieces.  When the waiter came he cursed him, flung a bill at him, got up, demanded his coat and hat, swore at the pallid, little, button-covered page who brought it, and lurched out into the street.

A cab stood there; he entered it, fell heavily into a corner of the seat, bade the driver, “Keep going, damn you!” and sat swaying, muttering, brooding on the wrongs that the world had done him.

Wrongs!  Yes, by God!  Every hand was against him, every tongue slandered him.  Who was he that he should endure it any longer in patience!  Had he not been patient?  Had he not submitted to the insults of a fool of a doctor?—­had he not stayed his hand from punishing Dumont’s red and distended face?—­had he not silently accepted the insolent retorts of these Grub Street literati who turned on him and flouted the talent that lay dormant in him—­dead, perhaps—­but dead or dormant, it still matched theirs!  And they knew it, damn them!

Had he not stood enough from the rotten world?—­from his own sister, who had flung his honour into his face with impunity!—­from Dysart, whose maddening and continual ignoring of his letters demanding an explanation——­

There seemed to come a sudden flash in his brain; he leaned from the window and shouted an address to the cabman.  His hat had fallen beside him, but he did not notice its absence on his fevered head.

“I’ll begin with him!” he repeated with a thick laugh; “I’ll settle with him first.  Now we’re going to see!  Now we’ll find out about several matters—­or I’ll break his neck off!—­or I’ll twist it off—­wring it off!”