He had regarded them with easy toleration, as
from a height. And now he saw himself tumbling down among them,
humiliated. Everything seemed unreal to him then. The studio and the
breakfast-room were solid; the waving trees in Regent's Park were
solid; the rich knick-knacks and beautiful furniture and excellent food
and fine clothes were all solid enough; but they seemed most
disconcertingly unreal. One letter from old Samuel had made them
tremble, and the second had reduced them to illusions, or delusions.
Even George's reputation as a rising sculptor appeared utterly
fallacious. What rendered him savage was the awful injustice of Samuel.
Samuel had no right whatever to play him such a trick. It was, in a way,
worse than if Samuel had cut off the allowance altogether, for in that
case he could at any rate have gone majestically to Samuel and said:
"Your niece and her child are starving." But with a minimum of three
hundred a year for their support three people cannot possibly starve.
"Ring the bell and have this kid taken out," said he.
Whereupon Georgie yelled.
Kate came, a starched white-and-blue young thing of sixteen.
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