He had never repented.  The more he knew of Emma, the more confirmation his favourable judgments received.  He even knew at times a stirring of the senses, which is the farthest that many of his kind ever progress in the direction of love.  Of the nobler features in Emma’s character, he of course remained ignorant; they did not enter into his demands upon woman, and he was unable to discern them even when they were brought prominently before him.  She would keep his house admirably, would never contradict him, would mother his children to perfection, and even would, go so far as to take an intelligent interest in the Propaganda.  What more could a man look for?

So there was no strife between old love and new; so far as it concerned himself, to put Emma aside would not cost a pang.  The garrison was absolutely mere tongue, mere gossip of public-house bars, firesides, etc.—­more serious, of the Socialist lecture-rooms.  And what of the girl’s own feeling?  Was there no sense of compassion in him?  Very little.  And in saying so I mean anything but to convey that Mutimer was conspicuously hard-hearted.  The fatal defect in working people is absence of imagination, the power which may be solely a gift of nature and irrespective of circumstances, but which in most of us owes so much to intellectual training.  Half the brutal cruelties perpetrated by uneducated men and women are directly traceable to lack of the imaginative spirit, which comes to mean lack of kindly sympathy.  Mutimer, we know, had got for himself only the most profitless of educations, and in addition nature had scanted him on the emotional side.  He could not enter into the position of Emma deserted and hopeless.  Want of money was intelligible to him, so was bitter disappointment at the loss of a good position; but the former he would not allow Emma to suffer, and the latter she would, in the nature of things, soon get over.  Her love for him he judged by his own feeling, making allowance, of course, for the weakness of women in affairs such as this.  He might admit that she would ‘fret,’ but the thought of her fretting did not affect him as a reality.  Emma had never been demonstrative, had never sought to show him all that was in her heart; hence he rated her devotion lightly.

The opinion of those who knew him!  What of the opinion of Emma herself?  Yes, that went for much; he knew shame at the thought, perhaps keener shame than in anticipating the judgment, say, of Daniel Dabbs.  No one of his acquaintances thought of him so highly as Emma did; to see himself dethroned, the object of her contempt, was a bitter pill to swallow.  In all that concerned his own dignity Richard was keenly appreciative; he felt in advance every pricking of the blood that was in store for him if he became guilty of this treachery.  Yes, from that point of view he feared Emma Vine.