of his strongest characteristics; his house had fallen, and it
seemed to him that a good deal of pity, if not of contempt, mingled
with his reception by the more fortunate of his own standing. He had
never overcome a natural hostility to old Mr. Mutimer: the
_bourgeois_ virtues of the worthy ironmaster rather irritated than
attracted him, and he suffered intensely in the thought that his
mother brought herself to close friendship with one so much her
inferior just for the sake of her son's future. In this matter he
judged with tolerable accuracy. Mrs. Eldon, finding in the old man a
certain unexpected refinement over and above his goodness of heart,
consciously or unconsciously encouraged herself in idealising him,
that the way of interest might approach as nearly as might be to
that of honour. Hubert, with no understanding for the craggy facts
of life, inwardly rebelled against the whole situation. He felt that
it laid him open to ridicule, the mere suspicion of which always
stung him to the quick. When, therefore, he declared to his mother,
in the painful interview on his return to Wanley, that it was almost
a relief to him to have lost the inheritance, he spoke with perfect
truth. Amid the tempest which had fallen on his life there rose in
that moment the semblance of a star of hope. The hateful conditions
which had weighed upon his future being finally cast off, might he
not look forward to some nobler activity than had hitherto seemed
possible? Was he not being saved from his meaner self, that part of
his nature which tended to conventional ideals, which was subject to
empty pride and ignoble apprehensions? Had he gone through the storm
without companion, hope might have overcome every weakness, but
sympathy with his mother's deep distress troubled his self-control.
At her feet he yielded to the emotions of childhood, and his misery
increased until bodily suffering brought him the relief of
unconsciousness.