XXI
After three-quarters of an hour of standing around, he became suddenly involved in a human contact. It was just the sort of thing that was likely to happen to him when he was in the mood of not wanting to see any one. So rigidly did he sometimes guard his exposed self-consciousness that frequently he defeated his own purposes; as an actor who underplays a part sets up a craning forward, a stimulated emotional attention in an audience, and seems to create in others an ability to bridge the gap he has left open. Similarly we are seldom sorry for those who need and crave our pity, we reserve this for those who, by other means, make us exercise the abstract function of pity.
So d**k might, himself, have analyzed the incident that ensued. As he paced the Rue des Saintes-Anges he was spoke
