expression
of what might be said for himself. Essie Scofield had, like every one
else, lived in the terms of her being, attracting to herself what
essentially she was; it was neither bad nor good, but inevitable. His
contact with her had been the result of mutual qualities, qualities that
were no longer valid. Yet to say that would place him in a damnable
light, give him the aspect of the meanest opportunist. Susan breathed,
"That poor woman." It was precisely what he had expected, feared--the
adventitious illusion! He had an impulse to describe to her, even at the
price of his own condemnation, the condition in which he had found
Eunice; but that too perished silently. Jasper Penny grew restive under
the unusual restraint of his position.

"Do you mind--no more at present." Susan Brundon said. "I am upset;
please, another time; if it is necessary. I feel that I couldn't answer
anything now, I must go up; no, your mother will show me." She rose, and
he realized that she would listen no further. There was an astonishing
strength of purpose behind her deprecating presence. She was more
determined than himself. He watched her walk evenly from the room, heard
the low stir of voices beyond, with a feeling that he had been perhaps
fatally clumsy. All that he had said had been wrong, brutally selfish.
He had deliberately invited failure; he should have been patient,
waited; given her a chance to know and, if possible, value him, come to
depend on him, on his judgment, his ability in her welfare. But, in
place of making himself a necessity, he had launched at once into facts
which she must find hideous. She had said, "another time, if necessary."
His mouth drew into a set line--there would be another and another,
until he had persuaded, gained, her.

He lit a cigar, and walked discontentedly up and across the room. The
sound of the Forge hammer again crept into his consciousness: the Penny
iron--the fibre, the actuality, of the Penny men! He repeated this
arrogantly; but the declaration no longer brought reassurance; the
certainty even of the iron faded from him; he had failed there, too,
digging a pit of oblivion for all that their generations of toil had
accomplished. The past inexorably woven into the pattern of the future!
Eunice, so soon wary, distrustful, Susan had seen that immediately,
would perpetuate all that he wished dead--Essie and himself bound
together, projected in an undesirable immortality through endless liv