But there was always a spiritual and mental reckoning of a painful
description: a soul's housecleaning which turned him out of doors a
miserable waif; and it invariably came too soon, before he had had
time to gloat over the blood on another boy's nose, or a man's
humiliation, or a woman's repentant blush. Instead of heartily
disliking people for the spiteful things they sometimes did, he was
apt to turn round and wonder if the fault had not been his; if he were
not the abysmal beast.
He had not half repaid Winifred Child for her rudeness with his
coldness, yet no sooner was he in the huge gray automobile--which
could comfortably have seated eight instead of six--than he felt a
pang of remorse, exactly like a gimlet twisting through his heart from
top to bottom.
"I oughtn't to have left her like that!" he reproached himself. "I
ought to have hung around and seen that everything went all right. She
said she had the address of a good, cheap boarding-house. But it may
have changed. Or it may be full. And, anyway, how will she get there?
She ought to take a cab. But will she? And if she does, won't she fall
dead at the price? I ought to have warned the poor child.
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