That is an inherited thing."
"Ah!" said Betty. "One of the temperaments one reads about--for which
no one is to be blamed but one's deceased relatives. After all, that is
comparatively easy to deal with. One can just go on doing what one wants
to do--and then condemn one's grandparents severely."
A repellent quality in her--which had also the trick of transforming
itself into an exasperating attraction--was that she deprived him of the
luxury he had been most tenacious of throughout his existence. If the
injustice of fate has failed to bestow upon a man fortune, good looks
or brilliance, his exercise of the power to disturb, to enrage those who
dare not resent, to wound and take the nonsense out of those about him,
will, at all events, preclude the possibility of his being passed over
as a factor not to be considered. If to charm and bestow gives the sense
of power, to thwart and humiliate may be found not wholly unsatisfying.
But in her case the inadequacy of the usual methods had forced itself
upon him. It was as if the dart being aimed at her, she caught it in
her hand in its flight, broke off its point and threw it lightly aside
without comment. Most women cannot resist the temptation to answer a
speech containing a sting or a reproach.
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