left open. I presume that I
have the right to read papers I find lying about in my own house."

George was dashed. On returning home from Mrs. John's lunch he had
changed his suit for another one almost equally smart, but of Angora and
therefore more comfortable. He liked to change. He had taken the letter
out of a side-pocket of the jacket and put it with his watch, money, and
other kit on the table while he changed, and he had placed everything
back into the proper pockets, everything except the letter.
Carelessness! A moment of negligence had brought about the irremediable.
The lovely secret was violated. The whole of his future life and of
Marguerite's future life seemed to have been undermined and contaminated
by that single act of omission. Marguerite wrote seldom to him because
of the risks. But precautions had been arranged for the occasions when
she had need to write, and she possessed a small stock of envelopes
addressed by himself, so that Mr. Haim might never by chance, picking up
an envelope from the hall floor, see George's name in his daughter's
hand. And now Mr. Haim had picked up an actual letter from the hall
floor. And the fault for the disaster was George's own.

"May I ask, sir, are you engaged to my daughter?" demanded Mr. Haim,
getting every instant still more excited.

George had once before seen him agitated about Marguerite, but by no
means to the same degree. He trembled. He shook. His dignity had a touch
of the grotesque; yet it remained dignity, and it enforced respect. For
George, destiny seemed to dominate the kitchen and the scullery like a
presence. He and the old man were alone together in that presence, and
he was abashed. He was conscious of awe. The old man's mien accused him
of an odious crime, of something base and shameful. Useless to argue
with himself that he was entirely guiltless, that he had the right to be
the betrothed of either Mr. Haim's daughter or any other girl, and to
publish or conceal the betrothal as he chose and as she chose. Yes,
useless! He felt, inexplicably, a criminal. He felt that he had
committed an enormity. It was not a matter of argument; it was a matter
of instinct. The old man's frightful and irrational resentment was his
condemnation. He could not face the old man.

He thought grievously: "I am up against this man. All politeness and
conventions have vanished. It's the real, inmost me, and the real,
inmost him." Nobody else could take a part in th