He knew he was absurd, but it was all he could think of. She gave him time enough to realise the pitiable spectacle he was making of himself, sitting her horse motionless, pretty eyes bent on his--an almost faultless though slight figure, smooth as a girl's yet faintly instinct with that charm of ripened adolescence just short of maturity. And, slowly, under her clear gaze, a confused comprehension began to stir in him--at first only a sort of chagrin, then something more--a consciousness of his own heaviness of intellect and grossness of figure--the fatness of mind and body which had developed so rapidly within the last two years. There she sat, as slim and pretty and fresh as ever; and only two years ago he had been mentally and physically active enough to find vigorous amusement in her company. Malcourt's stinging words concerning his bodily unloveliness and self-centred inertia came into his mind; and a slow blush deepened the colour in his heavy face. What vanity he had reckoned on had deserted him along with any hope of compromising a case only too palpably against him. And yet, through the rudiments of better feeling awakening within him, the instinct of thrift still coloured his ideas a little. "I'm dead wrong, Alida. We might just as well save fees and costs and go over the damages together.... I'll pay them. I ought to, anyway. I suppose I don't usually do what I ought. Malcourt says I don't--said so very severely--very mortifyingly the other day. So--if you'll get him or your own men to decide on the amount--" "Do you think the amount matters?" "Oh, of course it's principle; very proper of you to stand on your dignity--" "I am not standing on it now; I am listening to your utter misapprehension of me and my motives.... I don't care for any--damages." "It is perfectly proper for you to claim them, if," he added cautiously, "they are within reason--" "Mr. Portlaw!" "What?" he asked, alarmed. "I would not touch a penny! I meant to give it to the schools, here--whatever I recovered.... Your misunderstanding of me is abominable!" He hung his head, heavy-witted, confused as a stupid schoolboy, feeling, helplessly, his clumsiness of mind and body. Something of this may have been perceptible to her--may have softened her ideas concerning him--ideas which had accumulated bitterness during the year of his misbehaviour and selfish neglect. Her instinct divined in his apparently sullen attitude the slow intelligence and mental perturbation of a wilful, selfish boy made stupid through idleness and self-indulgence. Even what had been clean-cut, attractive, in his face and figure was being marred and coarsened by his slothful habits to an extent that secretly dismayed her; for she had always thought him very handsome; and, with that natural perversity of selection, finding in him a perfect foil to her own character, had been seriously inclined to like him.