Even the presence of Pym, waiting
on him with the usual deference, was a reassurance to him after the
scenes of yesterday. For, with Arthur's sensitiveness to opinion,
the loss of Adam's respect was a shock to his self-contentment which
suffused his imagination with the sense that he had sunk in all eyes--as
a sudden shock of fear from some real peril makes a nervous woman afraid
even to step, because all her perceptions are suffused with a sense of
danger.
Arthur's, as you know, was a loving nature. Deeds of kindness were as
easy to him as a bad habit: they were the common issue of his weaknesses
and good qualities, of his egoism and his sympathy. He didn't like to
witness pain, and he liked to have grateful eyes beaming on him as the
giver of pleasure. When he was a lad of seven, he one day kicked down an
old gardener's pitcher of broth, from no motive but a kicking impulse,
not reflecting that it was the old man's dinner; but on learning that
sad fact, he took his favourite pencil-case and a silver-hafted knife
out of his pocket and offered them as compensation. He had been the same
Arthur ever since, trying to make all offences forgotten in benefits.
If there were any bitterness in his nature, it could only show itself
against the man who refused to be conciliated by him.
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