Only a day or two before leaving Odessa he received a letter from
Mrs. Hannaford, in which she hinted that Irene Derwent was likely to
marry. On reaching London, he found at the hotel her answer to his
reply; she now named Miss Derwent's wooer, and spoke as if the
marriage were practically a settled thing. This turned to an ordeal
for Piers what would otherwise have been a pleasure, his call upon
John Jacks. He had to dine at Queen's Gate; be had to converse with
Arnold Jacks; and for the first time in his life he knew the meaning
of personal jealousy.
The sight of Irene's successful lover made active in him what had
for years been only a latent passion. All at once it seemed
impossible that he should have lost what hitherto he had scarcely
ever felt it possible to win. An unconsciously reared edifice of
hope collapsed about him, laid waste his life, left him standing in
desolate revolt against fate. Arnold Jacks was the embodiment of a
cruel destiny; Piers regarded him, not so much with hate, as with a
certain bitter indignation. He had no desire to disparage the man,
to caricature his assailable points; rather, in undiminished worship
of Irene, he exaggerated the qualities which had won her, the power
to which her gallant pride had yielded. These qualities, that power,
were so unlike anything in himself, that they gave boundless scope
to a jealous imagination.
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