Inside the tissue-paper was a small morocco
leather case. Inside that was a set of diamond and sapphire
sleeve-links--large ones.
He stood looking at them, blinking a little.
He supposed he must put them on. But something in him,
some intractably tough bit of his old self, rose up
protesting--frantically.
If he couldn't Use these people, at least they weren't going to Use
_him_!
"No, damn it!" he said under his breath, and, thrusting the case into
his pocket, slipped away unobserved.
Sec.4.
He flung himself into a chair in his bedroom and puffed a blast of air
from his lungs.... Yes, it had been a narrow escape. He knew that if
he had put those beastly blue and white things on he would have been a
lost soul....
"You've got to pull yourself together, d'you hear?" he said to
himself. "You've got to do a lot of clear, steady, merciless
thinking--now, to-night. You've got to persuade yourself somehow that,
Foundlings or no Foundlings, this regeneration of mankind business may
still be set going--and by _you_."
He paced up and down the room, fuming. How recapture the generous
certitudes that had one by one been slipping away from him? He found
himself staring vacantly at the row of books on the little shelf by
his bed.
Pages:
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