He says it is the misrepresentation that hurts him so; that, though he can stand a fair attack, he can't stand lies that he's powerless to refute and stop from spreading.

That's just Trewe's weak point.

He lives so much by himself that these things affect him much more than they would if he were in the bustle of fashionable or commercial life.

So he wouldn't come here, making the excuse that it all looked so new and monied--if you'll pardon--' 'But--he must have known--there was sympathy here! Has he never said anything about getting letters from this address ?' 'Yes, yes, he has, from John Ivy--perhaps a relative of yours, he thought, visiting here at the time ?' 'Did he--like Ivy, did he say ?' 'Well, I don't know that he took any great interest in Ivy.' 'Or in his poems ?' 'Or in his poems--so far as I know, that is.' Robert Trewe took no interest in her house, in her poems, or in their writer.

As soon as she could get away she went into the nursery and tried to let off her emotion by unnecessarily kissing the children, till she had a sudden sense of disgust at being reminded how plain-looking they were, like their father.
The obtuse and single-minded landscape-painter never once perceived from her conversation that it was only Trewe she wanted, and not himself.