His eyes met mine for a moment, and it was
exactly as if he had said to me "I know what you think, but I don't care
a rap." What I really thought was that he was selfish beyond the limits:
that was the substance of my little revelation. Youth is almost always
selfish, just as it is almost always conceited, and, after all, when it's
combined with health and good parts, good looks and good spirits, it has
a right to be, and I easily forgive it if it be really youth. Still it's
a question of degree, and what stuck out of Jasper Nettlepoint--if, of
course, one had the intelligence for it--was that his egotism had a
hardness, his love of his own way an avidity. These elements were jaunty
and prosperous, they were accustomed to prevail. He was fond, very fond,
of women; they were necessary to him--that was in his type; but he wasn't
in the least in love with Grace Mavis. Among the reflexions I quickly
made this was the one that was most to the point. There was a degree of
awkwardness, after a minute, in the way we were planted there, though the
apprehension of it was doubtless not in the least with himself. To
dissimulate my own share in it, at any rate, I asked him how his mother
might be.
His answer was unexpected. "You had better go down and see.
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