I looked at my face in the glass; my
own mother would not have known me. And so I came straight to Jennie
Paynter's, such was my whim ... whom I held on my knee fifty years ago.
"... Oh, it's been funny ... so funny ... to sit at that intolerable
table, and hear poor old Brooke on Reconstruction.
"And I've wondered what little Jennie Paynter would do, if I had risen
on one of these occasions and spoken my name to the table. How I've
hated her--hated the look and sight of her--and all the while embracing
it for dear life. She has told me much that she never knew I listened
to--many a bit about old friends ... forty years since I'd heard their
names. And Brooke has told me much, the doting old ass.
"But the life grew unbearable to a man of my temper. I could afford the
decency of privacy in my old age. For I had worked hard and saved
since....
"And then you came ... a scholar and a gentleman."
It was quite dark in the room. Surface's voice had suddenly changed. The
bitterness faded out of it; it became gentler than Queed had ever heard
it.
"I did not find you out at once.
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