Pagina 145 di 490

Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose.

Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the

danger of Sibyl's position. This young dandy who was making love

to her could mean her no good. He was a gentleman, and he hated

him for that, hated him through some curious race-instinct for

which he could not account, and which for that reason was all the

more dominant within him. He was conscious also of the

shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature, and in that saw

infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness. Children begin by

loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them;

sometimes they forgive them.