For
in the worst of men, they say, there still lingers some touch
of kindly human feeling, and M. Linders, though amongst the
most worthless, was not perhaps absolutely the worst of men.
He was selfish enough to inflict any amount of pain, yet not
hardened enough to look unmoved on his victims. He had, in
truth, taken both their misery and their reproaches to heart;
and sometimes, especially since his wife's death, he had
surprised in himself a strange, unaccountable desire for a
love that should be true and pure, but which, ignorant of, or
ignoring his errors, should be content to care for him and
believe in him just as he was: such a love as his wife might,
perhaps, have given him in her single month of unconscious
happiness. It was a longing fitful, and not defined in words,
but a real sentiment all the same, not a sentimentality; and,
imperfect as it was in scope and tendency, it expressed the
best part of the man's nature. He despised it, and crushed it
down; but it lay latent, ready to be kindled by a touch.
And here was a small piece of womankind belonging to him, who
could upbraid by neither word nor look, who ran towards him
confidently, stretching out tiny hands to clutch at his
shining gold chain, and gazing up in his face with great brown
eyes, that recalled to him those of her dead mother, when she
had first known and learnt to love him.
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