"Tell me," he said, "how you are off for money. You shall not want. . . ."
"I couldn't bear to think of you suffering through me."
Annie looked at him with that disarming directness that was unfamiliar to him:
It was not long before he had persuaded himself that she had deliberately plotted to humiliate him, by meeting his generosity--had he not been generous?--with what he called "beastly pride." Generosity, in his dual scheme of the world, should find its complement in a grovelling gratitude. Generosity was the prerogative of the male, gratitude the privilege of the female. That a woman should show self-reliance and fling back a man's generosity, suspect him most of all when he brought gifts, offended him as an indecency . . . After all if the woman does not take her cue from the man where is he? How can he continue to play his part? What becomes of the human drama?
Frederic's reflections of course were more particular than this, but, generalised, they would amount to the same thing. The world (_i.e._ Frederic) was so dishonest that honesty (_i.e._ an honest person, Annie) seemed to be offending against all the rules of the game, and, since the world is under the illusion that its whole existence depends on the game, it devotes its energy to the suppression of honesty. . . . Frederic told himself that he had a right to assist the woman, who was defiantly happy in the face of her sin, while he, her partner in that sin, was properly wretched and conscience-stricken and honestly desirous of making amends. He would obey his conscience--that must be right!--regain his self-respect and compel gratitude from Annie.
"We shall see!" he said, having partially restored his belief in his own rectitude and irresistibility.
He took to sending toys and little garments for the boy. They were returned to his office.
He went to Annie's rooms to find that she had flown. The devil of obstinacy was roused in him, and he bribed her landlady to procure her new address. He called but was refused admittance. . . . Then one morning he waited and followed her to her place of business and thereafter waylaid her several times. She was quite amiable but absolutely unyielding. One day as he was walking along by her side breathlessly pouring into her ear a tale of self-pity, self-accusation, self-abasement, entreaty for forgiveness, a word of kindness, extravagant out-pourings of love for the boy and his brave, splendid, true-hearted mother, all mixed together most adroitly with a complacent masculine belief in the softness and gullibility of the female heart, they met Serge. Annie called to him. Serge came at once.