George was dashed.  On returning home from Mrs. John’s lunch he had changed his suit for another one almost equally smart, but of Angora and therefore more comfortable.  He liked to change.  He had taken the letter out of a side-pocket of the jacket and put it with his watch, money, and other kit on the table while he changed, and he had placed everything back into the proper pockets, everything except the letter.  Carelessness!  A moment of negligence had brought about the irremediable.  The lovely secret was violated.  The whole of his future life and of Marguerite’s future life seemed to have been undermined and contaminated by that single act of omission.  Marguerite wrote seldom to him because of the risks.  But precautions had been arranged for the occasions when she had need to write, and she possessed a small stock of envelopes addressed by himself, so that Mr. Haim might never by chance, picking up an envelope from the hall floor, see George’s name in his daughter’s hand.  And now Mr. Haim had picked up an actual letter from the hall floor.  And the fault for the disaster was George’s own.

“May I ask, sir, are you engaged to my daughter?” demanded Mr. Haim, getting every instant still more excited.

George had once before seen him agitated about Marguerite, but by no means to the same degree.  He trembled.  He shook.  His dignity had a touch of the grotesque; yet it remained dignity, and it enforced respect.  For George, destiny seemed to dominate the kitchen and the scullery like a presence.  He and the old man were alone together in that presence, and he was abashed.  He was conscious of awe.  The old man’s mien accused him of an odious crime, of something base and shameful.  Useless to argue with himself that he was entirely guiltless, that he had the right to be the betrothed of either Mr. Haim’s daughter or any other girl, and to publish or conceal the betrothal as he chose and as she chose.  Yes, useless!  He felt, inexplicably, a criminal.  He felt that he had committed an enormity.  It was not a matter of argument; it was a matter of instinct.  The old man’s frightful and irrational resentment was his condemnation.  He could not face the old man.

He thought grievously:  “I am up against this man.  All politeness and conventions have vanished.  It’s the real, inmost me, and the real, inmost him.”  Nobody else could take a part in the encounter.  And he was sad, because he could not blame the old man.  Could he blame the old man for marrying a charwoman?  Why, he could only admire him for marrying the charwoman.  In marrying the charwoman the old man had done a most marvellous thing.  Could he blame Marguerite?  Impossible.  Marguerite’s behaviour was perfectly comprehensible.  He understood Marguerite and he understood her father; he sympathized with both of them.  But Marguerite could not understand her father, and her father could not understand either his daughter or George.  Never could they understand!