CHAPTER VIII
A LAST REVOLT
It proved a restless day, and a sufficiently unpleasant one, for Mr.
Hampton. For a number of years he had been diligently training himself
in the school of cynicism, endeavoring to persuade himself that he did
not in the least care what others thought, nor how his own career
ended; impelling himself to constant recklessness in life and thought.
He had thus successfully built up a wall between the present and that
past which long haunted his lonely moments, and had finally decided
that it was hermetically sealed. Yet now, this odd chit of a girl,
this waif whom he had plucked from the jaws of death, had overturned
this carefully constructed barrier as if it had been originally built
of mere cardboard, and he was compelled again to see himself, loathe
himself, just as he had in those past years.
Everything had been changed by her sudden entrance into his life,
everything except those unfortunate conditions which still bound him
helpless. He looked upon the world no longer through his cool, gray
eyes, but out of her darker ones, and the prospect appeared gloomy
enough.
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