Van Berg found something pathetic in Mr. Mayhew's weary and
disheartened manner. It was like that of a soldier who has suffered
defeat, but who goes on with his routine in a mechanical, spiritless
manner, because there is nothing else to do. He seemed to have no
hope, nor even a thought of retrieving the past and of reasserting
his own manhood. Accustomed as the young artist had ever been to
a household in which affection, allied to high-bred courtesy and
mutual respect, made even homely daily life noble and beautiful,
he could not look on the discordant Mayhew family with the charity,
or the indifference, of those who have seen more of the wrong side
of life. Had there been only poor, besmirched Mr. Mayhew, and
stout, dressy, voluble Mrs. Mayhew, he would never have glanced
towards them the second time; but his artist's eyes had fallen on
the contradictory being that linked them together. Morally and
mentally she seemed one with her parent stock; but her beauty, in
some of its aspects, was so marvellous, that the desire to redeem
it from its hateful and grotesque associations grew stronger every
hour.
Instead, therefore, of going off upon solitary rambles, as he had
done hitherto, he mingled more frequently in the amusements of
the guests of the house, with the hope he would thus be brought so
often in contact with the subject of his experiment, that her pique
would wear away sufficiently to permit them to meet on something
like friendly terms.
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