The hot hours of the sunny afternoon went by, not slowly at all, but with unusual speed, though he passed them doing nothing, but occasionally walking up and down the room. He had told Parker when he sent his telegram of excuse about the river party that he would dine at home and alone, and it was a matter for surprise when he was told that dinner was ready. And after dinner he sat again in the room where this morning he had found Claude with his cheque-book, as far from his decision as ever. But about one thing he had made up his mind; he believed Claude knew, or at any rate, suspected who had done this. There was no other explanation that could account at all reasonably for his shielding the culprit. It was no time to invent Utopian explanations (and even they would be elusive to the seeker); Jim wanted to see the things that were actually the case on this evening.
What was to be done? What was to be done? He could not tell Claude that his suspicions were grossly and gratuitously insulting, for Claude had expressed none; he had said there was nothing to suspect, no ground for suspicion. Nor did Jim see that it was possible to continue seeing Claude, feeling that he was in his hands, that at any moment he might disown the cheque, and let the bank pursue the usual course. Claude had been generous, quixotically generous that morning; but who knew whether that might not only be a momentary impulse, or even a move merely to gain time, to consider? It was a serious step to let one’s wife’s brother be prosecuted. But very likely he had only done it to stay immediate proceedings: very likely he wanted to talk it over with Dora first.... And at that thought the breaking point came. Through these solitary hours Jim had faced a good deal, and the fibres of endurance were weakened. And he could not face that. Anything was more tolerable than the picture of Dora being told.
Generous! That word had occurred in his thoughts, and it had been applied by him to Claude. It was no less than his due; he had always been generous. His generosity had not cost him much, had not entailed self-denial, but it had been there, it had been given. First in very little ways, as when he gave Jim free living at the flat; then in larger ways, when for the sake of Dora he imputed mere carelessness to himself instead of letting crime be brought home to another. The price of his generosity concerned nobody. And Jim was beaten. The worst of him surrendered to something a little better than the worst. The surrender was not nobly made; it was made from necessity, because every other course was a little more impossible than that. Claude had to be told. He knew that he was in Claude’s hands already; the most he could do and the least was to seem to put himself there. And then suddenly he felt so tired that thought was no longer possible, and he fell asleep where he sat.