These
things Sidney knew with a certainty only less than that wherewith he
judged his own sensations; between Jane and himself the sympathy was
perfect. And in despite of scruple he would before long have obeyed
the natural impulse of his heart, had it not been that still graver
complications declared themselves, and by exasperating his
over-sensitive pride made him reckless of the pain he gave to others
so long as his own self-torture was made sufficiently acute.
With Joseph Snowdon he was doing his best to be on genial terms, but
the task was a hard one. The more he saw of Joseph, the less he
liked him. Of late the filter manufacturer had begun to strike notes
in his conversation which jarred on Sidney's sensibilities, and made
him disagreeably suspicious that something more was meant than
Joseph cared to put into plain speech. Since his establishment in
business Joseph had become remarkably attentive to his father; he
appeared to enter with much zeal into all that concerned Jane; he
conversed privately with the old man for a couple of hours at a
time, and these dialogues, for some reason or other, he made a point
of reporting to Sidney.
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