Probably more than any concrete vice or failing Amory despised his own
personality--he loathed knowing that to-morrow and the thousand days
after he would swell pompously at a compliment and sulk at an ill word
like a third-rate musician or a first-class actor. He was ashamed of the
fact that very simple and honest people usually distrusted him; that he
had been cruel, often, to those who had sunk their personalities in him--
several girls, and a man here and there through college, that he had been
an evil influence on; people who had followed him here and there into
mental adventures from which he alone rebounded unscathed.
Usually, on nights like this, for there had been many lately, he could
escape from this consuming introspection by thinking of children and the
infinite possibilities of children--he leaned and listened and he heard a
startled baby awake in a house across the street and lend a tiny whimper
to the still night. Quick as a flash he turned away, wondering with a
touch of panic whether something in the brooding despair of his mood had
made a darkness in its tiny soul. He shivered.
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