How did I know what were the thoughts and
emotions behind that placid brow and those cool gray eyes?
But if one could be certain of nothing in dealing with
creatures so incalculable as human beings, there were
explanations of Blanche Stroeve's behaviour which were at all
events plausible. On the other hand, I did not understand
Strickland at all. I racked my brain, but could in no way
account for an action so contrary to my conception of him.
It was not strange that he should so heartlessly have betrayed
his friends' confidence, nor that he hesitated not at all to
gratify a whim at the cost of another's misery. That was in
his character. He was a man without any conception of
gratitude. He had no compassion. The emotions common to most
of us simply did not exist in him, and it was as absurd to
blame him for not feeling them as for blaming the tiger
because he is fierce and cruel. But it was the whim I could
not understand.
I could not believe that Strickland had fallen in love with
Blanche Stroeve. I did not believe him capable of love.
That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part,
but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others;
there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect,
an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure -- if not
unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously
conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.
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