But he discovered that he could not persuade himself to rejoin Rachel.
A self-consciousness, growing every moment more acute and troublesome,
prevented him from so doing. He was afraid that he could not discuss
the vanished money without blushing, and it happened rarely that he
lost control of his features, which indeed he could as a rule mould
to the expression of a cherub whenever desirable. So he sat down in
a chair, the first chair to hand, any chair, and began to reflect. Of
course he was safe. The greatest saint on earth could not have been
safer than he was from conviction of a crime. He might be suspected,
but nothing could possibly be proved against him. Moreover, despite
his self-consciousness, he felt innocent; he really did feel innocent,
and even ill-used. The money had forced itself upon him in an
inexcusable way; he was convinced that he had never meant to
misappropriate it; assuredly he had received not a halfpenny of
benefit from it. The fault was entirely the old lady's. Yes, he was
innocent and he was safe.
Nevertheless, he did not at all like the resuscitation of the affair.
The affair had been buried. How characteristic of the inconvenient
Julian to rush in from South Africa and dig it up! Everybody concerned
had decided that the old lady on the night of her attack had not been
responsible for her actions.
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