'
'And you will remember?'
'My dear Jack, I only ask you, am I likely to forget what you have
said with so much feeling?'
'Take it as a warning, then.'
In the act of having his hands released, and of moving a step back,
Edwin pauses for an instant to consider the application of these
last words. The instant over, he says, sensibly touched:
'I am afraid I am but a shallow, surface kind of fellow, Jack, and
that my headpiece is none of the best. But I needn't say I am
young; and perhaps I shall not grow worse as I grow older. At all
events, I hope I have something impressible within me, which feels-
-deeply feels--the disinterestedness of your painfully laying your
inner self bare, as a warning to me.'
Mr. Jasper's steadiness of face and figure becomes so marvellous
that his breathing seems to have stopped.
'I couldn't fail to notice, Jack, that it cost you a great effort,
and that you were very much moved, and very unlike your usual self.
Of course I knew that you were extremely fond of me, but I really
was not prepared for your, as I may say, sacrificing yourself to me
in that way.'
Mr. Jasper, becoming a breathing man again without the smallest
stage of transition between the two extreme states, lifts his
shoulders, laughs, and waves his right arm.
'No; don't put the sentiment away, Jack; please don't; for I am
very much in earnest. I have no doubt that that unhealthy state of
mind which you have so powerfully described is attended with some
real suffering, and is hard to bear.
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