To the degradation of having betrayed
Hubbard, the addition of this last touch of having also unconsciously
injured an inferior came to him like the exquisite irony of fate. He
wondered in an abstract and dispassionate way whether the ghost of all
his misdeeds were continually to rise before him. "Really," he said to
himself with a smile that curled his lips "in that case I shall become
a perfect Macbeth." And at that instant the ghost most dreadful of all
rose at the feast like that of Banquo as Rangely said,--
"I knocked at your studio this morning but couldn't get in."
There flashed through Fenton's mind all the possibilities of discovery
and disaster that might lie behind this remark, and his one strong
feeling was that it would be unsafe to venture on a definite statement;
he took refuge in the vaguest of general remarks.
"I am sorry not to have seen you," he said.
He tried to reflect, while Edith said something further in defence of
Melissa. He joked with Ethel about the probable appearance of the
statue young Stanton would make, which was to be set up directly
opposite her father's house. He noticed that Helen was very silent, and
he even reflected how handsome a man was Thayer Kent; but through it
all he seemed to hear the echo of that knock upon his studio door and a
foreboding which he could not shake off made him reflect gloomily how
utterly defenceless he should be in case of discovery.
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