" Is he a poor creature then, as he does nothing for the public good?" "He?--no! But then one must have the simplicity, the straightforwardness, the goodness of your father: and I haven't got that.

I do nothing, and I fret about it.

It's all your doing.

Before there was you--and _this_ too," he added with a glance towards her waist that she understood--"I put all my energies into work; now I can't, and I'm ashamed; I do it just as though it were a task set me, I'm pretending....