"
"I would give a good deal," Aynesworth declared, "to have known him
when you did."
Lovell nodded.
"You should be able to judge of the past," he said, "by the present.
Four years of--intimate companionship with any man should be enough!"
"Perhaps!" Aynesworth declared. "And yet I can assure you that I know
no more of Wingrave today than when I was first attracted to him by
your story and became his secretary. It is a humiliating confession,
but it is the truth."
"That is why you remain with him," Lovell remarked.
"I suppose so! I have often meant to leave, but somehow, when the time
comes, I stay on. His life seems to be made up of brutalities, small
and large. He ruins a man with as little compunction as one could
fancy him, in his younger days, pulling the legs from a fly. I have
never seen him do a kindly action. And yet, all the time I find myself
watching for it. A situation arises, and I say to myself: 'Now I am
going to see something different.' I never do, and yet I always expect
it. Am I boring you, Lovell?"
"Not in the least! Go on! Anything concerning Wingrave interests me."
"It is four years ago, you know, since I went to him. My first glimpse
of his character was the cold brutality with which he treated Lady
Ruth when she went to see him. Then we went down to his country place
in Cornwall. There was a small child there, whose father had been the
organist of the village, and who had died penniless.
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