 CHAPTER 35 Miss Middleton and Mrs. Mt. Stewart "'Sit beside me, fair Middleton,' said the great lady. "'Gladly,' said Clara, bowing to her title. "'I want to sound you, my dear.' Clara presented an open countenance with a dim interrogation on the forehead. "'Yes,' she said, submissively. "'You were one of my bright faces last night. I was in love with you. Delicate vessels ring sweetly to a fingernail, and if the wit is true, you answer to it. That I can see, and that is what I like. Most of the people one has at table are drums. A rubber-dubbed dub on them is the only way to get a sound. When they can be persuaded to do it upon one another, they call it conversation." Colonel Decre was very funny. Funny, and witty, too. But never spiteful. These Irish, or half-Irish men, are my taste. If they're not politicians' mind, I mean Irish gentlemen. I will never have another dinner-party without one. Our men's tempers are uncertain. You can't get them to forget themselves. And when the wine is in them, the nature comes out, and they must be buffeting, and start up politics, and goodbye to harmony. My husband, I am sorry to say, was one of those who have a long account of ruined dinners against them. I have seen him and his friends red as the roast, and white as the boiled, with wrath on a popular topic they had excited themselves over, intrinsically not worth a snap of the fingers. In London," exclaimed Mrs. Mount Stewart, to aggravate the charge against her Lord in the shades. But, town or country, the table should be sacred. I have heard women say it is a plot on the side of the men to teach us our littleness. I don't believe they have a plot. It would be to compliment them on a talent. I believe they fall upon one another blindly, simply because they are full. Which is, we are told, the preparation for the fighting Englishman. They cannot eat and keep a truce. Did you notice that dreadful Mr. Capes? The gentleman who frequently contradicted Papa. But Colonel Decret was good enough to relieve us. How, my dear? You did not hear him? He took advantage of an interval when Mr. Capes was breathing after a pain to his friend, the Governor, I think, of one of the Presidencies, to say to the lady beside him, he was a wonderful administrator and great logician. He married an Anglo-Indian widow, and soon after published a pamphlet in favour of Sati. And what did the lady say? She said, oh, hark at her! And was it heard? Mr. Capes granted the widow, but declared he had never seen the pamphlet in favour of Sati, and disbelieved in it. He insisted that it was to be named Sati. He was vehement. Now I do remember, which must have delighted the Colonel. And Mr. Capes retired from the front upon a repetition of in-toto, in-toto, as if in-toto were the language of a dinner-table. But what will ever teach these men? Must we import Frenchmen to give them an example in the art of conversation, as their grandfathers brought over marqueses to instruct them in salads? And our young men, too. Women have to take to the hunting-field to be able to talk with them, and to be on a par with their grooms. Now there was Willoughby pattern, a prince among them formerly. Now did you observe him last night? Did you notice how, instead of conversing, instead of assisting me, as he was bound to do, doubly owing to the defection of Vernon Whitford, a thing I don't yet comprehend? There he sat, sharpening his lower lip for cutting remarks, and at my best man, at Colonel Decret, if he had attacked Mr. Capes with his Governor of Bombay, as the man pronounces it, or Colonel Wilde John and his Protestant Church in Danger, or Sir Wilson Pettifer harping on his monarchical republic, or any other? No. He preferred to be sarcastic upon his friend Horace, and he had the worst of it. Sarcasm is so silly. What is the gain if he has been smart? People forget the epigram, and remember the others good temper. On that field, my dear, you must make up your mind to be beaten by friend Horace. I have my prejudices, and I have my prepossessions, but I love good temper, and I love wit, and when I see a man possessed of both, I set my cap at him, and there's my flat confession, and highly unfeminine it is." Not at all, cried Clara. We are one, then. Clara put up a mouth empty of words. She was quite one with her. Mrs. Mount Stewart pressed her hand. When one does get intimate with a dainty rogue, she said, you forgive me all that, for I could vow that Willoughby has betrayed me. Clara looked soft, kind, bright in turns, and clouded instantly when the lady resumed. A friend of my own sex, and young, and a close neighbour, is just what I would have prayed for, and I'll excuse you, my dear, for not being so anxious about the friendship of an old woman, but I shall be of use to you, you will find. In the first place I shall never tap for secrets, in the second I keep them, thirdly I have some power, and fourth every young married woman has need of a friend like me, yes, and lady pattern heading all the county will be the stronger for my backing. You don't look so mighty well pleased, my dear, speak out." Dear Mrs. Mount Stewart! I tell you I am very fond of Willoughby, but I saw the faults of the boy and see the man's. He has the pride of a king, and it's a pity if you offend it. He is prodigal in generosity, but he can't forgive. As to his own errors, you must be blind to them as a saint. The secret of him is that he is one of those excessively civilized creatures who aim at perfection, and I think he ought to be supported in his conceit of having attained it. For the more men of that class, the greater our influence. He excels in manly sports, because he won't be excelled in anything. But as men don't comprehend his fineness, he comes to us, and his wife must manage him by that key. You look down at the idea of managing. It has to be done. One thing you may be assured of, he will be proud of you. His wife won't be very much enamored of herself, she is not the happiest woman in the world. You will have the best horses, the best dresses, the finest jewels in England, and an incomparable cook. The house will be changed the moment you enter it as Lady Pattern. And my dear, just where he is, with all his graces deficient of attraction, yours will tell. The sort of Othello he would make, or Leontes I don't know, and none of us ever needs to know. My impression is that if even a shadow of a suspicion flitted across him, he is a sort of man to double-dye himself in guilt by way of vengeance and anticipation of an imagined offense. Not uncommon with men. I have heard strange stories of them, and so will you in your time to come. But not for me. No young woman shall ever be the sourer for having been my friend. One word of advice now we are on the topic. Never play at counter-strokes with him. He will be certain to out-stroke you, and he will be driven further than you meant to go. They say we beat men at that game, and so we do at the cost of beating ourselves. And if once we are started it is a race-course ending on a precipice, over goes the winner. We must be moderately slavish to keep our place, which has given us an appearance. But appearances make up a remarkably large part of life, and far the most comfortable, so long as we are discreet at the right moment. He is a man whose pride, when hurt, would run his wife to perdition to solace it. If he married a troublesome widow, his pamphlet on Sutty would be out within the year. Vernon Whitford would receive instructions about it the first frosty moon. You like Miss Dale? I think I like her better than she likes me, said Clara. Have you never warmed together? I have tried it. She is not one bit to blame. I can see how it is that she misunderstands me, or justly condemns me, perhaps, I should say. The hero of two women must die and be wept over in common before they can appreciate one another. You are not cold. No. You shuddered, my dear. Did I? I do sometimes. Feet will be walking over one's grave wherever it lies. Be sure of this. Willoughby pattern is a man of unimpeachable honour. I do not doubt it. He means to be devoted to you. He has been accustomed to have women hanging around him like votive offerings. I—you cannot, of course not, any one could see that at a glance. You are all the sweeter to me for not being tame. Marriage cures a multitude of indispositions. Oh, Mrs. Mount Stewart, will you listen to me? Presently, don't threaten me with confidences. Elequence is a terrible thing in women. I suspect, my dear, that we both know as much as could be spoken. You hardly suspect the truth, I fear. Let me tell you one thing about jealous men, when they are not Blackamore's married to disobedient daughters. I speak of our civil creature of the drawing-rooms, and lover's mind, not husband's. Two distinct species, married or not, they are rarely given to jealousy unless they are flighty themselves. The jealousy fixes them. They have only to imagine that we are for some fun likewise, and they grow as deferential as my footmen, as harmless as the sportsman who's gone as burst. Ah, my fair Middleton, am I pretending to teach you? You have read him his lesson, and my table suffered for it last night, but I bear no rancour. You be wilderness, Mrs. Mount Stewart. Not if I tell you that you have driven the poor man to try whether it be possible for him to give you up. I have. Well, and you are successful. I am. Jump, my dear. He will? When men love stale instead of fresh, withered better than blooming, excellence in the abstract rather than the palpable, with their idle prey to feminine intellect and a grotto-nymph and a mother of grotchy, why, he must think me dazed with admiration of him to talk to me. One listens, you know, and he is one of the men who cast a kind of physical spell on you while he has you by the ear, until you begin to think of it by talking to somebody else. I suppose there are clever people who do see deep into the breasts while dialogue is in progress. One reads of them. No, my dear, you have very cleverly managed to show him that it isn't at all possible. He can't. And the real cause for alarm, in my humble opinion, is lest your amiable foil should have been a trifle, as he would say, deceived. Too much an earnest led too far. One may reprove him for not being wiser, but men won't learn without groaning that they are simply weapons taken up to be put down when done with. Leave it to me to compose him. Willoughby can't give you up. I'm certain he has tried. His pride has been horribly wounded. You were shrewd and he has had his lesson. If these little rufflings don't come before marriage, they come after. So it's not time lost. And it's good to be able to look back on them. You are very white, my child. Can you, Mrs. Mount Stewart, can you think I would be so heartlessly treacherous? Be honest, fair Middleton, and answer me. Can you say you had not a corner of an idea of producing an effect on Willoughby? Clara checked the instinct of her tongue to defend her reddening cheeks, with a sense that she was disintegrating and crumbling, but she wanted this lady for a friend, and she had to submit to the conditions and be red and silent. Mrs. Mount Stewart examined her leisurely. That will do. Conscience blushes. One knows it by the conflagration. Don't be hard on yourself. There you are in the other extreme. That blush of yours would count with me against any quantity of evidence, all the crooklins in the kingdom. You lost your purse. I discovered that it was lost this morning. Rich has been here with it. Willoughby has it. You will ask him for it. He will demand payment. You will be a couple of yards' length or so of cramoisie, and there ends the episode. Nobody killed. Only a poor man melancholy wounded, and I must offer him my hand to mend him, vowing to prove to him that Sutty was properly abolished. Well, and now to business. I said I wanted to sound you. You have been overdone with porcelain. Poor Lady Bush is in despair at your disappointment. Now I mean my wedding-present to be to your taste. Madam! Who is the madam you are imploring? Dear Mrs. Mount Steward. Well? I shall fall on your esteem. Perhaps you will help me. No one else can. I am a prisoner. I am compelled to continue this imposter. Oh! I shun speaking much. You object to it, and I dislike it. But I must endeavour to explain to you that I am unworthy of the position you think a proud one. Tutt-tutt, we are all unworthy, cross our arms and bow our heads, and accept the honours. Are you playing humble handmaid? What an old organ-tune that is. Well, give me reasons. I do not wish to marry. He's the great match of the county. I cannot marry him. Why you are at the church door with him cannot marry him. It does not bind me. The church door is as binding as the altar to an honourable girl. What have you been about? Since I am in for confidences, half-ones won't do. We must have honourable young women as well as men of honour. You can't imagine he is to be thrown over now, at this hour. What have you against him? Come. I have found that I do not— What? Love him. Mrs. Mount Stewart grimaced transiently. That is no answer. The cause, she said. What has he done? Nothing. And when did you discover this nothing? By degrees unknown to myself suddenly. Suddenly and by degrees? I suppose it's useless to ask for a head. But if all this is true, you ought not to be here. I wish to go. I am unable. Have you had a scene together? I have expressed my wish. In roundabout, girls English? Quite clearly. Oh, very clearly. Have you spoken to your father? I have. And what does Dr. Middleton say? It is incredible to him. To me, too. I can understand little differences, little whims, caprices. We don't settle into harness for a tap on the shoulder as a man becomes a knight, but to break and bounce away from an unhappy gentleman at the church door is either madness, or it's one of the things without a name. You think you are quite sure of yourself? I am so sure that I look back with regret on the time when I was not. But you were in love with him. I was mistaken. No love. I have none to give. Dear me! Yes, yes, but that tone of sorrowful conviction is often a trick. It's not new, and I know that assumption of plain sense to pass off a monstrosity. Mrs. Mount Stewart struck her lap. So! But I've had to rack my brain for it. Feminine disgust! You've been hearing imputations of his past life, a moral character. No? Circumstances might make him behave unkindly, not unhandsomely, and we have no claim over a man's past, or it's too late to assert it. What is the case? We are quite divided. Nothing in the way of—nothing green-eyed. Far from that. Then name it. We disagree. Many a very good agreement is found on disagreeing. It's to be regretted that you are not portionless. If you had been, you would have made very little of disagreeing. You are just as much bound in honour as if you had the ring on your finger. In honour? But I appeal to his. I am no wife for him. But if he insists you consent—I appeal to reason. Is it, madam? But I say if he insists, you consent. He will insist upon his own misery as well as mine. Mrs. Mount Stewart rocked herself. My poor Sir Willoughby, what a fate! And I took you for a clever girl. Why I have been admiring your management of him. And here am I bound to take a lesson from Lady Bush. My dear Good Middleton, don't let it be said that Lady Bush saw deeper than I. I put some little vanity in it I own. I won't conceal it. She declares that when she sent her present—I don't believe her—she had a premonition that it would come back. Surely you won't justify the extravagance as of a woman without common reverence. For anatomize him as we please to ourselves. He is a splendid man. But I did it, chiefly, to encourage and come at you. We don't often behold such a lordly-looking man, so conversable, too, when he feels at home—a picture of an English gentleman—the very man we want married for our neighbourhood. A woman who can talk openly of expecting him to be twice jilted—you shrink. It is repulsive. It would be incomprehensible. Except, of course, to Lady Bush, who rushed to one of her violent conclusions and became a prophetess. Another woman's imagining it could happen twice to the same man. I am not sure she did not send the identical present that arrived and returned once before. You know, the Durham engagement. She told me last night she had it back. I watched her listening very suspiciously to Professor Cooklin. My dear, it is her passion to foretell disasters, her passion, and when they are confirmed she triumphs, of course. We shall have her domineering over us with sapient nods at every trifle occurring. The county will be unendurable. Unsay it, my Middleton, and don't answer like an oracle because I do all the talking. Pour out to me. You'll soon come to a stop and find the want of reason in the want of words. I assure you that's true. Let me have a good gaze at you. No," said Mrs. Mount Stewart, after posturing herself to Peru's clarist features. Brains you have! One can see it by the nose and the mouth. I could vow you are the girl I thought you. You have your wits on tiptoe. How of the heart?" None, Claricide. The sigh was partly voluntary, though unforced, as one may with ready sincerity act a character that is our own only through sympathy. Mrs. Mount Stewart felt the extra weight in the young lady's falling breath. There was no necessity for a deep sigh over an absence of heart or confession of it. If Clare did not love the man to whom she was betrothed, sighing about it signified what? Some pretence, and a pretence as the cloak of a secret. Girls do not sigh in that way with compassion for the man they have no heart for, unless at the same time they should be oppressed by the knowledge or dread of having a heart for someone else. As a rule they have no compassion to bestow on him. You might as reasonably expect a soldier to bewail the enemy he strikes in action, but they must be very disengaged to have it. And supposing a show of the thing to be exhibited, when it is not being worried out of them, there is a reserve in the background. They are pitying themselves under a mask of decent pity of their wretch. So ran Mrs. Mount Stewart's calculations, which were like her suspicion, coarse and broad, not absolutely incorrect, but not of an exact measure with the truth. That pin's head of the truth is rarely hit by design. The search after it of the professionally penetrative in the dark of a bosom may bring it forth by the heavy knocking all about the neighborhood that we call good guessing, but it does not come out clean. Other matter adheres to it, and being more it is less than truth. The unadulterate is to be had only by faith in it or by waiting for it. A lover, thought the sagacious dame, there was no lover, some love there was, or rather there was a preparation of the chamber with no lamp yet lighted. Do you positively tell me you have no heart for the position of first lady of the county?" said Mrs. Mount Stewart. Clara's reply was firm. None, whatever. My dear, I will believe you on one condition. Look at me. You have eyes. If you are for mischief, you are armed for it. But how much better, when you have won a prize, to settle down and wear it? Lady Pattern will have entire occupation for her flights and whimsies in leading the county. And the man—surely the man—he behaved badly last night, but a beauty like this—she pushed her finger at Clara's cheek and doted half an instant. You have the very beauty to break in an ogre's temper, and the man is as governable as he is presentable. You have the beauty the French call—no, it's the beauty of a queen of elves. One sees them lurking about you, one here, one there. Smile, they dance, be doleful, they hang themselves—no, there's not a trace of satanic—at least not yet. And come, come, my Middleton, the man is a man to be proud of. You can send him into Parliament to wear off his humours. To my thinking he has a fine style. Conscious? I never thought so before last night. I can't guess what has happened to him recently. He was once a young grand monarch. He was really a superb young English gentleman. Have you been wounding him? It is my misfortune to be obliged to wound him," said Clara. Night needlessly, my child, for marry him you must." Clara's bosom rose. Her shoulders rose too, narrowing, and her head fell slightly back. Mrs. Mount Stewart exclaimed, But the scandal! You would never, never think of following the example of that Durham girl. Whether she was provoked to it by jealousy or not, it seems to have gone so astonishingly far with you in a very short time, that one is alarmed as to where you will stop. Your look just now is downright revulsion. I fear it is. It is. I am past my own control. Dear madam, you have my assurance that I will not behave scandalously or dishonourably. What I would entreat of you is to help me. I know this of myself. I am not the best of women. I am impatient, wickedly. I should be no good wife. Feelings like mine teach me unhappy things of myself." Rich, handsome, lordly, influential, brilliant health, fine estates! Mrs. Mount Stewart enumerated in petulant accents as there started across her mind some of Sir Willoughby's attributes for the attraction of the soul of women. I suppose you wish me to take you in earnest. I appeal to you for help. What help? Persuade him of the folly of pressing me to keep my word. I will believe you, my dear Middleton, on one condition. Your talk of no heart is nonsense. A change like this, if one is to believe in the change, occurs through the heart, not because there is none. Don't you see that? But if you want me for a friend, you must not sham stupid. It's bad enough in itself, the imitation's horrid. You have to be honest with me, and answer me right out. You came here on this visit intending to marry Willoughby pattern. Yes. And gradually you suddenly discovered, since you came here, that you did not intend it, if you could find a means of avoiding it. Oh, madam, yes, it is true. Now comes the test. My lovely Middleton, your flaming cheeks won't suffice for me this time. The old serpent can blush like an innocent maid on occasion. You are to speak, and you are to tell me in six words why that was. And don't waste one on madam or oh, Mrs. Mount Stewart. Why did you change? I came. When I came I was in some doubt. Indeed I speak the truth. I found I could not give him the admiration he has, I dare say, a right to expect. I turned. It surprised me. It surprises me now, but so completely, so that to think of marrying him is— Defer the simile, Mrs. Mount Stewart interposed. If you hit on a clever one you will never get the better of it. Now by just as much as you have outstripped my limitation of words to you, you show me you are dishonest. I could make a vow. You would foreswear yourself. Will you help me? If you are perfectly ingenuous I may try. Dear lady, what more can I say? It may be difficult. You can reply to a catechism. I shall have your help? Well, yes, though I don't like stipulations between friends. There is no man living to whom you could willingly give your hand. That is my question. I cannot possibly take a step unless I know. Reply briefly, there is or there is not. Clara sat back with bated breath, mentally taking the leap into the abyss, realizing it, and the cold prudence of abstention, and the delirium of the confession. Was there such a man? It resembled freedom to think there was, to avow it promised freedom. Oh, Mrs. Mount Stewart! Well, you will help me. Upon my word I shall begin to doubt or desire for it. Willingly give my hand, madam. For shame! And with wits like yours can't you perceive where hesitation in answering such questions lands you? Dearest lady, will you give me your hand? May I whisper? You need not whisper. I won't look. Clara's voice trembled on a tense chord. There is one, compared with him I feel my insignificance, if I could aid him. What necessity have you to tell me more than that there is one? Ah, madam, it is different, not as you imagine. You bid me be scrupulously truthful. I am. I wish you to know the different kind of feeling it is from what might be suspected from a confession. To give my hand is beyond any thought I have ever encouraged. If you had asked me whether there is one whom I admire—yes, I do—I cannot help admiring a beautiful and brave, self-denying nature. It is one whom you must pity, and to pity cast you beneath him, for you pity him because it is his nobleness that has been the enemy of his fortunes. He lives for others. Her voice was musically thrilling in that low-muted tone of the very heart, impossible to deride or disbelieve. Mrs. Mount Steward set her head nodding on springs. Is he clever? Very. He talks well? Yes. Handsome? He might be thought so. Whitty? I think he is—gay, cheerful, in his manner. Why the man would be a mount-a-bank if he adopted any other, and poor? He is not wealthy. Mrs. Mount Steward preserved a lengthened silence, but nipped Clare's fingers once or twice to reassure her without approving. Of course he's poor, she said at last. Directly the reverse of what you could have, it must be. Well, my fair Middleton, I can't say you have been dishonest. I'll help you as far as I'm able. How? It is quite impossible to tell. We're in the mire. The best way seems to me to get this pitiable angel to cut some ridiculous capers, and present you another view of him. I don't believe in his innocence. He knew you to be a plighted woman. He is not once by word or sign hinted at his loyalty. Then how do you know? I do not know. He is not the cause of your wish to break your engagement? No. Then you have succeeded in just telling me nothing. What is? Ah, madam. You would break your engagement purely because the admirable creature is in existence. Sarah shook her head. She could not say she was dizzy. She had spoken out more than she had ever spoken herself, and in doing so she had cast herself a step beyond the line she dared to contemplate. I won't detain you any longer," said Mrs. Bound Stewart. The more we learn, the more we are taught that we are not so wise as we thought we were. I have to go to school, to Lady Bush. I really took you for a very clever girl. If you change again you will notify the important circumstance to me I trust. I will," said Clara, and no violent declaration of the impossibility of her changing again would have had such an effect on her here. Mrs. Bound Stewart scanned her face for a new reading of it to match with her later impressions. I am to do as I please with the knowledge I have gained. I am utterly in your hands, madam. I have not meant to be unkind. You have not been unkind. I can embrace you. I am rather too shattered, and kissing won't put me together. I laughed at Lady Bush. No wonder you went off like a rocket with a disappointing bouquet when I told you it'd been successful with poor Sir Willoughby, and he could not give you up. I noticed that—a woman like Lady Bush always prying for the lamentable would have required no further enlightenment. Has he a temper? Clara did not ask her to signalize the person thus abruptly obtruded. He has faults, she said. There's an end, Sir Willoughby, then. Though I don't say he will give you up even when he hears the worst, if he must hear it, and as for his own sake he should. And I won't say he ought to give you up. He'll be the pitiable angel if he does. For you—but you don't deserve compliments, they would be immoral. You have behaved badly, badly, badly. I have never had such a right about face in my life. You will deserve the stigma. You will be notorious. You will be called number two. Think of that, not even original. We will break the conference, or I shall twaddle to extinction. I think I heard the luncheon bell. It rang. You don't look fit for company, but you would better come. Oh yes, every day it's the same. Whether you're in my hands or I'm in yours, we're a couple of arch conspirators against the peace of the family whose table we're sitting at, and the more we rattle the violer we are, but we must do it to ease our minds. Mrs. Mount Stewart spread the skirts of her voluminous dress, remarking further, At a certain age our teachers are young people. We learn by looking backward. It speaks highly for me that I have not called you mad. Full of faults, goodish-looking, not a bad talker, cheerful, porous, and she prefers that to this," the great lady exclaimed in her reverie, while emerging from the circle of shrubs upon view of the hall. Colonel Decret advanced to her, certainly good-looking, certainly cheerful, by no means a bad talker, nothing of a croesus, unvariagated with faults. His laughing smile attacked the irresolute hostility of her mean, confident as the sparkle of sunlight in a breeze. The effect of it on herself angered her on behalf of Sir Willoughby's bride. Good-morning, Mrs. Mount Stewart, I believe I am the last to greet you. And how long do you remain here, Colonel Decret? I kissed earth when I arrived, like the Norman William, and consequently I have an attachment to the soil-mom. You're not going to take possession of it, I suppose. A handful would satisfy me. You play the conqueror pretty much, I have heard, but property is held more sacred than in the times of the Norman William. And speaking of property, Miss Middleton, your purses found," he said. I know it is," she replied, as unaffectedly as Mrs. Mount Stewart could have desired, though the ingenuous air of the girl incensed her somewhat. Clara passed on. You restore purses," observed Mrs. Mount Stewart. Her stress on the word and her look thrilled Decret, for there had been a long conversation between the young lady and the dame. It was an article that dropped and was not stolen, said he. Barely sweet enough to keep, then. I think I could have felt to it, like poor Fletch, the flyman who was the finder. If you are conscious of these temptations to appropriate what is not your own, you should quit the neighborhood. And do it elsewhere. But that's not virtuous counsel. And I'm not counseling in the interests of your virtue, Colonel Decret. And I dared for a moment to hope that you were, mom," he said, ruefully drooping. They were close to the dining-room window, and Mrs. Mount Stewart preferred the terminating of a dialogue that did not promise to leave her features the austerely iron cast with which she had commenced it. She was under the spell of gratitude for his behavior yesterday evening at her dinner-table. She could not be very severe. CHAPTER XXXVI. at a luncheon-table. Vernon was crossing the hall to the dining-room as Mrs. Mount Stewart stepped in. She called to him. Are the champions reconciled? He replied, hardly that, but they have consented to meet at an altar to offer up victim to the gods in the shape of modern poetic imitations of the classical. That seems innocent enough. The professor has not been anxious about his chest. He recollects his cough now and then. You must help him to forget it. Lady Bush and Lady Colmer are here," said Vernon, not supposing it to be a grave announcement until the effect of it on Mrs. Mount Stewart admonished him. She dropped her voice. Engage, my fair friend, for one of your walks the moment we rise from table. You may have to rescue her, but do I mean it. And she's a capital walker," Vernon remarked in Simpleton style. There's no necessity for any of your pedestrian feats, Mrs. Mount Stewart said, and let him go, turning to Colonel Decray to pronounce an encomium on him. The most open-minded man I know, warranted to do perpetual service and no mischief. If you were all, instead of catching at every prize you covet, yes, you would have your reward for unselfishness, I assure you. Yes, and where you seek it, this is what none of you men will believe. Can you behold me in your own livery?" cried the Colonel. Do I? said she, dallying with a half-form design to be confidential. How is it one is always tempted to address you in the language of innuendo? I can't guess. Except that as a dog doesn't comprehend good English we naturally talk bad to him. The great lady was tickled. Who could help being amused by this man? And after all, if her fair Middleton chose to be a fool there could be no gain saying her. Sorry, though, poor Sir Willoughby's friends must feel for him. She tried not to smile. You are too absurd, or a baby, you might have added. I hadn't the daring. I'll tell you what, Colonel Decray, I shall end by falling in love with you, and without esteeming you, I fear. The second follows as surely as the flavour upon a draft of Bacchus, if you'll but toss off the glass, Mom. We women, sir, think it should be first. Is to transpose the seasons and give October the blossom and April the apple, and no sweet one. Esteem's a mellow thing that comes after bloom and fire like an evening at home, because if it went before it would have no father and couldn't hope for progeny, for there'd be no nature in the business. So please, Mom, keep to the original order, and you'll be nature's child and I the most blessed of mankind. Really? Were I fifteen years younger? I am not so certain. I might try and make you harmless. Draw the teeth of the lamb so long as you pet him. I challenged you, Colonel, and I won't complain of your pitch. But now lay your wit down beside your candor, and descend to an everyday level with me for a minute. Is it innuendo? No. Though I dare say it would be easier for you to respond to if it were. I am the straightforwardest of men at a word of command. This is a whisper. Be alert as you were last night. Shuffle the table well. A little liveliness will do it. I don't imagine malice, but there's curiosity, which is often as bad and not so lightly foiled. We have Lady Bush and Lady Colmer here, to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky. Well, then, can you fence with broomsticks? I have had a bout with them in my time. They are terribly direct. They give point, as Napoleon commanded his cavalry to do. You must help me to ward it. They will require variety in the conversation. Constant! You are an angel of intelligence, and if I have the judging of you, I'm afraid you'll be allowed to pass in spite of the scandal above. Open the door. I don't unbonnet." Decray threw the door open. Lady Bush was at that moment saying, And are we indeed to have you for a neighbour, Dr. Middleton? The Reverend Doctor's reply was drowned by the new arrivals. I thought you had forsaken us, observed Sir Willoughby to Mrs. Mount Stewart. And run away with Colonel Decray. I'm too weighty, my dear friend. Besides, I have not looked at the wedding-presence yet. The very object of our call, exclaimed Lady Colmer. I have to confess I am in dire alarm about mine. Lady Bush nodded across the table at Clara. Oh! You may shake your head, but I would rather hear a rough truth than the most complimentary evasion. How would you define a rough truth, Dr. Middleton? said Mrs. Mount Stewart. Like the trained warrior who was ready at all hours for the trumpet to arms, Dr. Middleton waked up for judicial allocution in a trice. A rough truth, madam! I should define to be that description of truth which is not imparted to mankind without a powerful impregnation of the roughness of the teller. It is a rough truth, ma'am, that the world is composed of fools, and that the exceptions are knaves. Professor Crooklyn furnished that example avoided by the Reverend Doctor. Not to precipitate myself into the jaws of the foregone definition, which strikes me as being as happy as Jonah's wail that could carry probably the most learned man of his time inside without the necessity of digesting him, said Decray. A rough truth is a rather strong charge of universal nature for the firing off of a modicum of personal fact. It is a rough truth that Plato is Moses attisizing, said Vernon to Dr. Middleton to keep the diversion alive, and that Aristotle had the globe under his cranium rejoined the Reverend Doctor, and that the moderns live on the ancients, and that not one in ten thousand can refer to the particular treasury he filters. The art of our days is a revel of rough truth, remarked Professor Crooklyn. And the literature has laboriously mastered the adjective wherever it may be in relation to the noun. Dr. Middleton added, Orson's first appearance at court was in the figure of a rough truth causing the maids of honour, accustomed to tapestry-adams, astonishment and terror, said Decray, that he might not be left out of the sprightly play, so will be leveled a lance at the quintane, smiling on Letitia. In fine caricature is rough truth. She said, Is one end of it, and realistic directness is the other? He bowed. The palm is yours. Mrs. Mount Stewart admired herself as each one trotted forth in turn characteristically, with one exception unaware of the aid which was being rendered to a distressed damsel wretchedly incapable of decent hypocrisy, her intrepid lead had shown her hand to the colonel, and drawn the enemy at a blow. Sir Willoughby's, in fine, however, did not please her, still lest at his lackadaisical lothario like bowing and smiling to Miss Dale, and he perceived it and was hurt. For how, carrying his tremendous load, was he to compete with these unhandicapped men in the game of nonsense she had such a fondness for starting at a table? He was further annoyed to hear Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabelle Pettern agree together that, caricature was the final word of the definition. Miss Middleton's should know better than to deliver these awards to us in public. Well! Quoth Lady Bush, expressive of stupefaction at the strange dust she had raised. Are they on view, Miss Middleton? inquired Lady Cullmer. There is a regiment of us on view, and ready for inspection. Colonel Decre bowed to her, but she would not be foiled. Miss Middleton's admirers are always on view, said he. Are they to be seen? said Lady Bush. Clara made her face a question with a laudable smoothness. The wedding-presence, Lady Cullmer explained. No. Otherwise, my dear, we are in danger of duplicating and triplicating and quadruplicating, not at all to the satisfaction of the bride. But there is a worse danger to encounter in the on view, my lady, said Decre, and that, the magnetic attraction at display of wedding-presence is sure to have for the ineffable burglar, who must have a nuptial soul in him, for wherever there is that collection on view he is never a league off, and is said he knows a lady's dressing-case presented to her on the occasion fifteen years after the event. As many as fifteen, said Mrs. Mount Stewart, by computation of the police, and if the presence are on view, dogs are of no use, nor bolts no bars, he is worse than Cupid. The only protection to be found, singular as it may be thought, is in a couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica rum in the British Isles. Rum? cried Lady Bush. The liquor of the Royal Navy, my lady, and with your permission I'll relate the tale and proof of it. I had a friend engaged to a young lady, niece of an old sea-captain of the old school, the Benbow School, the Wooden Leg and Pigtail School, a perfectly salt old gentleman with a pickled tongue and a dash of brine in every deed he committed. He looked rolled over to you by the last wave on the shore, sparkling. He was Neptune's own for humour. And when his present to the bride was opened, sure enough there lay a couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica rum in the British Isles, born before himself and his father to boot. It is a fabulous spirit I beg you to believe in, my lady, and the sole merit of the story being its portentous veracity. The bottles were tied to make them appear twins, as they both had the same claim to seniority, and there was a label on them telling their great age to maintain their identity. They were in truth a pair of patriarchal bottles, rivaling many of the biggest houses in the kingdom for antiquity. They would have made the donkey that stood between the two bundles of hay look at them with obliquity, supposing him to have, for an animal, a rum taste, and a turn for hilarity. Wonderful old bottles. So on the label, just over the date, was written large, Uncle Benjamin's wedding present to his niece, Bessie. Poor Bessie shed tears of disappointment and indignation enough to float the old gentleman on his native element, ship and all. She vowed it was done curmudgeonly to vex her, because her uncle hated wedding presents and had grunted at the exhibition of cups and saucers and this and that beautiful service, and eppairns and inkstands, mirrors, knives and forks, dressing cases, and the whole, mighty category. She protested, she flung herself about, she declared those two ugly bottles should not join the exhibition in the dining room, where it was laid out for days, and the family ate their meals where they could, on the walls like flies. But there was also Uncle Benjamin's legacy on view in the distance, so it was ruled against her that the bottles should have their place. And one fine morning down the family came after a fearful row of the domestics, shouting, screaming, cries for the police, and murder topping all. What did they see? They saw two prodigious burglars extended along the floor, each with one of the twin bottles in his hand, and a remainder of the whore of the midnight hanging about his person like a blown fog, sufficient to frighten them whilst they kicked the rascals entirely intoxicated. Never was wilder disorder of wedding presents, and not one lost, owing you'll own to Uncle Benjy's two bottles of ancient Jamaica rum. Colonel Decray concluded within a separation of the truth of the story. A most provident, far-sighted old sea-captain, exclaimed Mrs. Mount Stewart, laughing at Lady Bush and Lady Colmer. These ladies chimed in with her gingerly. "'And have you many more clever stories, Colonel Decray?' said Lady Bush. "'Ah, my lady, when the tree begins to count its gold, tis nigh upon bankruptcy.' "'Poetic!' ejaculated Lady Colmer, spying at Miss Middleton's rippled countenance, and noting that she and Sir Willoughby had not interchanged word or look. "'But that, in the case of your pattern-port, a bottle of it, would outvalue the catalogue of nuptial presence, Willoughby. I would recommend your stationing some such constabulary to keep watch and ward,' said Dr. Middleton, as he filled his glass, taking Bordeaux in the middle of the day under a consciousness of virtue in its reward to come at half-past seven in the evening. The rascals would require a dozen of that, sir,' said Decray. "'Then it is not to be thought of, indeed one.' Dr. Middleton negative'd the idea. "'We are no further advance than when we began,' observed Lady Bush. "'If we are marked to go by stages,' Mrs. Mount Steward ascended. "'Why, then, we shall be called old coaches,' remarked the Colonel. "'You,' said Lady Colmer, "'have the advantage of us in a closer acquaintance with Miss Middleton. You know her tastes, and how far they have been consulted in the little souvenirs already grouped somewhere, although not yet for inspection. "'I am at sea, and here is Lady Bush in deadly alarm. There is plenty of time to effect a change, though we are drawing on rapidly to the fatal day, Miss Middleton. We are, we are very near it. Oh, yes! I am one who thinks that these little affairs should be spoken of openly, without that ridiculous bourgeois affectation, so that we may be sure of giving satisfaction. It is a transaction like everything else in life. I, for my part, wish to be remembered favorably. I put it as a test of breeding to speak of these things as plain matter of fact. You, Mary, I wish you to have something by you to remind you of me. What shall it be, useful or ornamental, for an ordinary household the choice is not difficult, but where wealth abounds we are in a dilemma? And with persons of decided tastes,' added Lady Bush. I am really very unhappy,' she protested to Clara. Sir Willoughby dropped Letitia. Clara's look of a sedate resolution to preserve silence on the topic of the nuptial gifts made a diversion imperative. Your porcelain was exquisitely chosen, and I profess to be a connoisseur. He said, I am poor in old Saxony, as you know. I can match the country in Savra, and my inheritance of China will not easily be matched in the country. You may consider your dragon Vaz as a present from young Cross J. said Decray. How? Hasn't he abstained from breaking them? The capital boy, porcelain and a boy in the house together, is a case of prospective disaster fully equal to flitch and a fly. You should understand that my friend Horace, whose wit is in this instance founded on another tale of a boy, brought us a magnificent piece of porcelain, destroyed by the cap-sizing of his conveyance from the station. Led Sir Willoughby to Lady Bush. She and Lady Calmer gave out lamentable o's, while Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabelle Pattern sketched the incident. Then the Lady Visitors fixed their eyes and united sympathy upon Clara, recovering from which, after a contemplation of marble, Lady Bush emphasized, No, you do not love porcelain, it is evident, Miss Biddleton. I am glad to be a short of it, said Lady Calmer. Oh, I know that face! I know that look! Lady Bush affected to remark rallyingly. It is not the first time I have seen it! Sir Willoughby smarted to his marrow. We will rout these fancies of an overscrupulous generosity, my dear Lady Bush. Her unwonted breach of delicacy in speaking publicly of her present, and the vulgar persistency of her sticking to the theme, very much perplexed him, and if he mistook her not, she had just alluded to the demonical, Constantia dorum. It might be that he had mistaken her. He was on guard against his terrible sensitiveness. Nevertheless it was hard to account for this behavior of a Lady greatly his friend and admirer, a Lady of Birth, and Lady Calmer as well, likewise a Lady of Birth, were they in collusion, had they a suspicion? He turned to Letitia's face for the antidote to his pain. Oh, but you are not one yet, and I shall acquire two voices to convince me!" Lady Bush rejoined after another stare at the marble. Lady Bush, I beg you not to think me ungrateful, said Clara. Fiddle! Gratitude! It is to please your taste, to satisfy you. I care for gratitude as little as for flattery. But gratitude is flattering, said Vernon. Now no metaphysics, Mr. Whitford. But do care a bit for flattery, my lady, said Decray. Tis the finest of the arts. We might call it moral sculpture. Students in it can cut their friends to any shape they like by practicing it with the requisite skill. I myself, poor hand as I am, have made a man act Solomon by constantly praising his wisdom. He took a sagacious turn in an early period of the dose. He weighed the smallest question of his daily occasions with a deliberation truly oriental. Had I pushed it, he'd have hired a baby and a couple of mothers to squabble over the undivided morsel. I shall hope for a day in London with you, said Lady Calmer to Clara. You did not forget the Queen of Sheba, said Mrs. Mount Stewart to Decray. With her appearance the game has to be resigned to her entirely. He rejoined. That is—Lady Calmer continued—if you do not despise an old woman for your comrade on a shopping excursion. Despise whom we fleece, exclaimed Dr. Middleton. Oh no, Lady Calmer, the sheep is sacred. I am not so sure, said Vernon. In what way and to what extent are you not so sure, said Dr. Middleton? The natural tendency is to scorn the fleece. I stand for the contrary—pity, if you like, particularly when they bleed. This is to assume that makers of gifts are a fleeced people. I, demer, said Mrs. Mount Stewart. Madam, we are expected to give. We are incited to give. You have dubbed it the fashion to give, and the person refusing to give, or incapable of giving, may anticipate that he will be regarded as benignly as a sheep of a drooping and flaccid wool by the farmer, who is reminded by the poor beast's appearance of a strange dog that worried the flock. Even Captain Benjamin, as you have seen, was unable to withstand the demand on him. The hymenial pair are licensed free-booters levying blackmail on us, survivors of an uncivilized period. But in taking without mercy, I ventured to trust that the manners of a happier era instruct them not to scorn us. I apprehend that Mr. Whitford has a lower order of latrons in his mind. Permit me to say, sir, that you have not considered the ignoble aspect of the fleeced," said Vernon. I appeal to the ladies. Would they not, if they beheld an ostrich walking down a queen's drawing-room, clean-plucked, despise him though they were wearing his plumes? An extreme supposition indeed," said Dr. Middleton, frowning over it, scarcely legitimately to be suggested. I think it fair, sir, as an instance. Has the circumstance occurred, I would ask? In life? A thousand times. I fear so," said Mrs. Mount Stewart. Lady Bush showed symptoms of a desire to leave a profitless table. Vernon started up, glancing at the window. Did you see Cross Jay? he said to Clara. No. I must, if he is there," said she. She made her way out, Vernon after her. They both had the excuse. Which way did the poor boy go? She asked him. I have not the slightest idea," he replied, but put on your bonnet if you would escape that pair of inquisitors. Mr. Whitford, what humiliation! I suspect you do not feel it the most, and the end of it can't be remote," said he. Thus it happened that when Lady Bush and Lady Colmer quitted the dining-room, Miss Middleton had spirited herself away from summoning voice and messenger. Sir Willoughby apologized for her absence. If I could be jealous, it would be of that boy Cross Jay. You are an excellent man and the best of cousins," was Lady Bush's enigmatic answer. The exceedingly lively conversation at his table was lauded by Lady Colmer. Though," said she, what it all meant and what was the drift of it, I couldn't tell to save my life. Is it every day the same with you here?" Very much. How you must enjoy a spell of dullness! If you said simplicity and not talking for effect, I generally cast anchor by Letitia Dale. Ah! Lady Bush coughed, but the fact is, Mrs. Mount Stewart is made for cleverness. I think, my Lady, Letitia Dale is to the full as clever as any of the stars Mrs. Mount Stewart assembles, or I. A talkative cleverness, I mean. In conversation as well. Perhaps you have not yet given her a chance. Yes, yes, she is clever, of course, poor dear. She is looking better, too. Handsome, I thought," said Lady Colmer. She varies. Observed, Sir Willoughby. The ladies took seat in their carriage and fell at once into a close bonnet colloquy, not a single illusion had they made to the wedding-presence after leaving the luncheon table. The cause of their visit was obvious. CHAPTER XXXVII. Contains clever fencing and intimations of the need for it. That woman, Lady Bush, had predicted after the event, Constantia Durham's defection. She had also, subsequent to Willoughby's departure on his travels, uttered skeptical things concerning his rooted attachment to Letitia Dale. In her bitter vulgarity, that beaten rival of Mrs. Mount Stewart Jenkinson for the leadership of the county, had taken his nose for a melancholy prognostic of his fortunes. She had recently played on his name. She had spoken the hideous English of his fate. Little as she knew, she was alive to the worst interpretation of appearances. No other eulogy occurred to her now than to call him the best of cousins, because Vernon Whitford was housed and clothed and fed by him. She had nothing else to say for a man she thought luckless. She was a woman barren of wit, stripped of style, but she was wealthy and a gossip, a forge of showering sparks, and she carried Lady Cullmer with her. The two had driven from his house to spread them a lignant rumor abroad. Already they blew the biting world on his raw wound. Neither of them was like Mrs. Mount Stewart, a witty woman, who could be hoodwinked. They were dull women, who steadily kept on their own scent of the fact, and the only way to confound such inveterate forces was to be ahead of them, and seize and transform the expected fact, and astonish them when they came up to him with a totally unanticipated fact. You see, you were in error, ladies. And so we were, Sir Willoughby, and we acknowledge it. We never could have guessed that. Thus the phantom couple in the future delivered themselves, as well they might at the revelation. He could run far ahead. Aye! But to combat these doltes, facts had to be encountered, deeds done, in groaning earnest. Representatives of the pigsconces of the population judged by circumstances. Airy shows and seams had no effect on them. Dexterity of fence was thrown away. A flying peep at the remorseless might of dullness in compelling us to a concrete performance counter to our inclinations, if we would deceive its terrible instinct, gave Willoughby for a moment the survey of a sage. His intensity of personal feeling struck so vivid an illumination of mankind at intervals that he would have been individually wise had he not been moved by the source of his accurate perceptions to a personal feeling of opposition to his own sagacity. He loathed and he despised the vision, so his mind had no benefit of it, though he himself was whipped along. He chose, rather, and the choice is open to us all, to be flattered by the distinction it revealed between himself and mankind. But if he was not as others were, why was he discomforted, solicitous, miserable? To think that it should be so, ran dead against his conqueror's theories wherein he had been trained, which, so long as he gained success, awarded success to native merit, grander to the grand and sole, as light kindles light, nature presents the example. His early training, his bright beginning of life, had taught him to look to earth's principal fruits as his natural portion, and it was owing to a girl that he stood for a mark for tongues, naked, wincing at the possible malignity of a pair of harridans. Why not whistle the girl away? Why then he would be free to enjoy, careless, younger than his youth in the rebound to happiness? And then would his nostrils begin to lift, and sniff at the creeping up of a thick, pestiferous vapor. Then in that volume of stench would he discern the sullen yellow eye of malice. A malaria's earth would hunt him all over it. The breath of the world, the world's view of him, was partly his vital breath, his view of himself. The ancestry of the tortured man had bequeathed him this condition of high civilization among their other bequests. Your withered contracted egoists of the hut and the grot, wrecked not of public opinion. They crave but for liberty and leisure to scratch themselves and soothe an excessive scratch. Willoughby was expansive, a blooming one, born to look down upon a tributary world, and to exalt and being looked to. Do we wonder at his consternation in the prospect of that world's blowing fowl on him? Princes have their obligations to teach them they are mortal, and the brilliant air of a tributary world is equally enchained by the homage it brings him. More inasmuch as it is immaterial, elusive, not gathered by the tax, and he cannot capitally punish the treasonable recusants. Still must he be brilliant, he must court his people. He must ever, both in his reputation and his person, aching though he be, show them a face and a leg. The wounded gentleman shut himself up in his laboratory, where he could stride to and fro, and stretch out his arms for physical relief, secure from observation of his fantastical shapes under the idea that he was meditating. There was perhaps enough to make him fancy it in the heavy fire of shots exchanged between his nerves and the situation. There were notable flashes. He would not avow that he was in agony. It was merely a desire for exercise. Quintessence of worldliness Mrs. Mount Stewart appeared through his farthest window, swinging her skirts on a turn at the end of the lawn, with Horace Decresce smirking beside her. And the woman's vaunted penetration was unable to detect the histrionic irishism of the fellow. Or she liked him for his acting and nonsense. Nor she only. The voluble beast was created to snare women. Willoughby became smitten with an adoration of steadfastness in women. The incarnation of that divine quality crossed his eyes. She was clad in beauty. A horrible, nondescript convulsion composed of yawn and groan drove him to his instruments, to a verter renewal of the shock. And while arranging and fixing them for their unwanted task, he compared himself advantageously with men like Vernon and Decresce, and others of the county, his fellows in the hunting field and on the magistrates' bench, who neither understood nor cared for solid work, beneficial, practical work, the work of science. He was obliged to relinquish it. His hand shook. Science will not advance much at this rate," he said, casting the noxious retardation on his enemies. It was not to be contested that he must speak with Mrs. Mount Stewart, however he might shrink from the trial of his facial muscles. Her not coming to him seemed ominous. Nor was her behaviour at the luncheon-table quite obscure. She had evidently instigated the gentleman to cross and counter-chatter Lady Bush and Lady Colmer. For what purpose? Clara's features gave the answer. They were implacable, and he could be the same. In the solitude of his room he cried right out, I swear it, I will never yield her to Horace Decresce. She shall feel some of my torments, and try to get the better of them by knowing she deserves them. He had spoken it, and it was an oath upon the record. Desire to do her intolerable hurt became an ecstasy in his veins, and produced another stretching fit that terminated in a violent shake of the body and limbs, during which he was a spectacle for Mrs. Mount Stewart at one of the windows. He laughed as he went to her, saying, No, no work to-day, it won't be done, positively refuses. I am taking the professor away, said she. He is fidgety about the cold he caught. Sir Willoughby stepped out to her. I was trying at a bit of work for an hour, not to be idle all day. You work in that den of yours every day. Never less than an hour, if I can snatch it. It is a wonderful resource. The remark set him throbbing, and thinking that a prolongation of his crisis exposed him to the approaches of some organic malady, possibly heart disease. A habit, he said, in there I throw off the world. We shall see some results in due time. I promise none. I like to be abreast of the real knowledge of my day, that is all. And a pearl among country gentlemen. In your gracious consideration, my dear lady, generally speaking it would be more advisable to become a chatterer and keep an anecdotal notebook. I could not do it simply because I could not live with my own emptiness for the sake of making an occasional display of fireworks. I aim at solidity. It is a narrow aim, no doubt, not much appreciated. Letitia Dale appreciates it. A smile of enforced roofleness, like a leaf curling in heat, wrinkled his mouth. Why did she not speak of her conversation with Clara? Have they caught Cross Jay? He said. Apparently they are giving chase to him. The likelihood was that Clara had been overcome by timidity. Must you leave us? I think it's prudent to take Professor Crooklyn away. He's still—the extraordinary resemblance. A word aside to Dr. Middleton will dispel that. You are thoroughly good. This hateful encomium of commiseration transfixed him. Then she knew of his calamity. Philosophical, he said, would be the proper term, I think. Colonel Decret, by the way, promises me a visit when he leaves you. Tomorrow? The earlier the better. He is too captivating. He is delightful. He won me in five minutes. I don't accuse him. Nature gifted him to cast the spell. We are weak women, Sir Willoughby. She knew. Like to like, the witty to the witty-mom. You won't compliment me with a little bit of jealousy. I forbear from complimenting him. Be philosophical, of course, if you have the philosophy. I pretend to it. Probably I suppose myself to succeed, because I have no great requirement of it. I cannot say. We are riddles to ourselves. Mrs. Mount Stewart pricked the turf with the point of her parasol. She looked down, and she looked up. Well, said he to her eyes. Well! And where is Letitia Dale? He turned about to show his face elsewhere. When he fronted her again, she looked very fixedly, and set her head shaking. It will not do, my dear Sir Willoughby. What? I never could solve enigmas. Playing ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum, then. Things have gone far. All parties would be happier for an excursion. Send her home. Letitia! I can't part with her. Mrs. Mount Stewart put a tooth on her underlip as her head renewed its brushing negative. In what way can it be hurtful that she should be here, mom? He ventured to persist. Think! She is proof. Twice! The word was big artillery. He tried the affectation of a staring stupidity. She might have seen his heart thump, and he quitted the mask for an agreeable grimace. She is inaccessible. She is my friend. I guarantee her on my honour. Have no fear for her. I beg you to have confidence in me. I would perish, rather. No soul on earth is to be compared with her. Mrs. Mount Stewart repeated, Twice! The low monosyllable, musically spoken in the same tone of warning of a gentle ghost, rolled a thunder that maddened him, but he dared not take it up to fight against it on plain terms. Is it for my sake? he said. It will not do, Sir Willoughby. She spurred him to a frenzy. My dear Mrs. Mount Stewart, you have been listening to tales. I am not a tyrant. I am one of the most easy-going of men. Let us preserve the forms due to society, I say no more. As for poor old Vernon, people call me a good sort of cousin. I should like to see him comfortably married, decently married this time. I have proposed to contribute to his establishment. I mention it to show that the case has been practically considered. He has had a tolerably souring experience of the state. He might be inclined, if, say, you took him in hand for another venture. It's a demoralizing lottery. However, government sanctions it. But Sir Willoughby, what is the use of my taking him in hand when, as you tell me, Letitia Dale holds back? She certainly does. Then we are talking to no purpose, unless you undertake to melt her. He suffered a lurking smile to kindle to some strength of meaning. You are not over-considerate in committing me to such an office. You are afraid of the danger! She all but sneered. Sharpened by her tone, he said, I have such a love of steadfastness of character, that I should be a poor advocate in the endeavour to break it. And frankly, I know the danger. I saved my honour when I made the attempt. That is all I can say. Upon my word—Mrs. Mount Stewart threw back her head to let her eyes behold him summarily over their fine aquiline bridge. You have the art of mystification, my good friend. Abandon the idea of Letitia Dale. And marry your cousin Vernon to whom? Where are we? As I said, ma'am, I am an easygoing man. I really have not a spice of the tyrant in me. An intemperate creature held by the collar may have that notion of me, while pulling to be released as promptly as it entered the noose. But I do strictly and sternly object to the scandal of violent separations, open breaches of solemn engagements, a public rupture. Put it that I am the cause, I will not consent to a violation of decorum. Is that clear? It is just possible for things to be arranged so that all parties may be happy in their way without much hubbub. And it is not I who have wielded so. I am, and I am forced to be, passive, but I will not be obstructive." He paused, waving his hand to signify the vanity of the more that might be said. Some conception of him, dashed by incredulity, excited the lady's intelligence. "'Well,' she exclaimed, "'you have planted me in the land of conjecture. As my husband used to say, I don't see light, but I think I see the links that does. We won't discuss it at present. I certainly must be a younger woman than I supposed, for I am learning hard.' Here comes the Professor, buttoned up to the ears, and Dr. Middleton flapping in the breeze. There will be a cough and a footnote referring to the young lady at the station, if we stand together, so please order my carriage. You found Clower complacent, roguish. I will call to-morrow. You have simplified my tasks, or will it be very much? That is, assuming that I have not entirely mistaken you. I am so far in the dark that I have to help myself by recollecting how Lady Bush opposed my view of a certain matter formally. Skepticism is her forte. It will be the very oddest thing, if, after all, no, I shall own romance has not departed. Are you fond of dupes? I detest the race. An excellent answer. I could pardon you for it." She refrained from adding, "'If you are making one of me.'" Sir Willoughby went to ring for her carriage. She knew that was palpable. Clara had betrayed him. "'The earlier Colonel Decret leaves Pattern Hall the better,' she had said that, and all parties would be happier for an excursion.' She knew the position of things, and she guessed the remainder. But what she did not know and could not divine was the man who fenced her. He speculated further on the witty and the dull. These latter are the redoubtable body. They will have fact to convince them. They had, he confessed it to himself, precipitated him into the novel sphere of his dark hints to Mrs. Mount Stewart, from which the utter darkness might allow him to escape. Yet it embraced him singularly, and even pleasantly, with the sense of a fact established. It embraced him even very pleasantly. There was an end to his tortures. He sailed on a tranquil sea, the husband of a steadfast woman, no rogue. The exceeding beauty of steadfastness in women clothed letitia in graces Clara could not match. A tried steadfast woman is the one jewel of the sex. She points to her husband like the sunflower. Her love illuminates him. She lives in him, for him. She testifies to his worth. She drags the world to his feet. She leads the course of his praises. She justifies him in his own esteem. Surely there is not on earth such beauty. If we have to pass through anguish to discover it, and cherish the peace it gives to Claspett, calling it ours, is a full reward. Deep in his reverie he said his adieu to Mrs. Mount Stewart, and strolled up the avenue behind the carriage-wheels, unwilling to meet Letitia till he had exhausted the fresh savor of the cud of fancy. Supposing it done. It would be generous on his part. It would redound to his credit. His home would be a fortress impregnable to tongues. He would have divine security in his home. One who read and knew and worshipped him would be sitting there star-like, sitting there awaiting him, his fixed star. It would be marriage with a mirror, with an echo. Marriage with a shining mirror, a choric echo. It would be marriage with an intellect, with a fine understanding, to make his home a fountain of repeatable wit, to make his dear old pattern-haul the luminary of the county. He revolved it as a chant, with a non-and-a-non involuntarily a discordant animate version on Lady Bush. Its attendant imps heard the angry inward cry. Fourthwith he set about painting Letitia in delectable human colours, like a miniature of the past century, reserving her ideal figure for his private satisfaction. The world was to bow to her visible beauty, and he gave her enamel and glow, a taller stature, a swimming air, a transcendency that exorcised the image of the old witch who had driven him to this. The result in him was that Letitia became humanly and avowedly beautiful. Her dark eyelashes on the pallor of her cheeks lent their aid to the transformation, which was a necessity to him, so it was performed. He received the wax and impression. His retinue of imps had a revel. We hear wonders of men, and we see a lifting up of hands in the world. The wonders would be explained, and never a hand needed to interject. If the mystifying man were but accompanied by that monkey-eyed confraternity, they spy the heart and its twists. The heart is the magical gentleman. None of them would follow where there was no heart. The twists of the heart are the comedy. The secret of the heart is its pressing love of self, says the book. By that secret the mystery of the organ is legible, and a comparison of the heart to the mountain rillet is taken up to show us the unbaffled force of the little channel in seeking to swell its volume, strenuously, sinuously, ever in pursuit of self, the busiest, as it is the most single aiming of forces on our earth, and we are directed to the sinuosities for posts of observation, chiefly instructive. Few maintain a stand there. People see, and they rush away to interchange liftings of hands at the site, instead of patiently studying the phenomenon of energy. Consequently, a man in love with one woman, and in all but absolute consciousness, behind the thinnest of veils, preparing his mind to love another, will be barely credible. The particular hunger of the forceful but adaptable heart is the key of him. Behold the mountain rillet, become a brook, become a torrent, how it in arms a handsome boulder! Yet if the stone will not go with it, on it hurries, pursuing self in extension, down to where perchance a dam has been raised of a sufficient depth, to enfold and keep it from inordinate restlessness. Letitia represented this peaceful restraining space in prospect. She was a faded young woman. He was aware of it, and systematically looking at himself with her upturned orbs, he accepted her benevolently as a god grateful for worship, and used the divinity she imparted to paint and renovate her. His heart required her so. The heart works the springs of imagination. Imagination received its commission from the heart, and was a cunning artist. Cunning to such a degree of seductive genius that the masterpiece it offered to his contemplation enabled him simultaneously to gaze on Clara and think of Letitia. Clara came through the park gates with Vernon, a brilliant girl indeed, and a shallow one, a healthy creature, and an animal, attractive, but capricious, impatient, treacherous, foul, a woman to drag men through the mud. She approached. End of CHAPTER XXXVII. CHAPTER XXXVIII. OF THE EGOIST. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Magdalena Cook. The Egoist by George Meredith. In which we take a step to the centre of the egoism. They met. Vernon soon left them. You have not seen Cross Jay? Willoughby inquired. No, said Clara. Once more, I beg you to pardon him. He spoke falsely, owing to his poor boy's idea of chivalry. The chivalry to the sex which commences in lies ends by creating the woman's hero, whom we see about the world and in certain courts of law. His ability to silence her was great. She could not reply to speech like that. You have, said he, made a confidant of Mrs. Mount Stuart. Yes. This is your purse. I thank you. Professor Crooklyn had managed to make your father acquainted with your project. That, I suppose, is a railway ticket in the fold of the purse. He was assured at the station that you had taken a ticket to London and would not want the fly. It is true, I was foolish. You have had a pleasant walk with Vernon, turning me in and out. We did not speak of you. You allude to what he would never consent to. He is an honest fellow in his old fashion way. He is a secret old fellow. Does he ever talk about his wife to you? Clara dropped her purse and stooped to pick it up. I know nothing of Mr. Whitford's affairs, she said, and she opened the purse and tore to pieces the railway ticket. The stories are proof that romantic spirits do not furnish the most romantic history. You have the word chivalry frequently on your lips. His chivalrously married the daughter of the lodging house, where he resided before I took him. We obtained information of the auspicious union in a newspaper report of Mrs. Whitford's drunkenness and rioting at a London railway terminus. Probably the one with your ticket would have taken you yesterday, for I heard the lady was on her way to us for supplies. The canubule larder being empty. I am sorry. I am ignorant. I have heard nothing. I know nothing, said Clara. You are disgusted, but half the students and authors you hear of marry in that way, and very few have Vernon's luck. She had good qualities, asked Clara, her underlip hung. It looked like disgust. He begged to not indulge the feeling. Literary men, it is notorious, even with the entry to society, have no taste in women. The housewife is their object. Ladies frighten and would, no doubt, be an annoyance and hindrance to them at home. You said he was fortunate. You have a kindness for him. I respect him. He is a friendly old fellow in his awkward fashion, honourable and so forth. But a disreputable alliance of that sort sticks to a man. The world will talk. Yes, he was so fortunate so far. He fell into the mire and got out of it. Worry to marry again. She died. Don't be startled. It was a natural death. She responded to the sole wishes left to his family. He buried the woman, and I received him. I took him on my tour. A second marriage might cover the first. There would be a buzz about the old business. The woman's relatives write to him still. Try to bleed him, I dare say. However, now you understand his gloominess. I don't imagine he regrets his loss. He probably sentimentalises, like most men, when they are well rid of a burden. You must not think the worst of him. I do not, said Clara. I defend him whenever the matters disgust. I hope you do. Without approving his folly, I can't wash him clean. They were at the hall's doors. She waited for any personal communications he might be pleased to make. And as there was none, she ran upstairs to her room. He had tossed her to Vernon in his mind. Not only painlessly, but with a keen acid of satisfaction. The heart is the wizard. Next he bent his deliberate steps to Laetitia. The mind was guilty of some hesitation. The feet went forward. She was working at an embroidery by an open window. Colonel Decray leaned outside, and Willoughby pardoned her air of amusement, on hearing him say, No, I have had one of the pleasantest half hours of my life. And would rather idle here, if idle you will have it, than employ my faculties on horseback. Time is not lost in conversing with Miss Dale, said Willoughby. The light was tender to her complexion where she sat in partial shadow. Decray asked whether Cross J had been caught. Laetitia murmured a kind word for the boy. Willoughby examined her embroidery. The ladies Eleanor and Isabelle appeared. They invited her to take carriage exercise with them. Laetitia did not immediately answer, and Willoughby remarked, Miss Dale has been reproving horrors for idleness, and I recommend you to enlist him to do duty, while I relieve him here. The ladies had but to look at the Colonel. He was at their disposal, if they would have him. He was marched to the carriage. Laetitia plied her threads. Colonel Decray spoke of Cross J, she said, May I hope you have forgiven the poor boy, Sir Willoughby? He replied, plead for him. I wish I had eloquence. In my opinion you have it. If he offends it is never from meaners. At school, among comrades, he would shine. He is in too strong a light. His feelings and his moral nature are overexcited. That was not the case when he was at home with you. I am severe. I am stern. A Spartan mother. My system of managing a boy would be after that model, except in this. He should always feel that he could obtain forgiveness. Not at the expense of justice. Ah, young creatures are not to be arraigned before the higher courts. It seems to me perilous to terrify their imaginations. If we do so, are we not likely to produce their very evil we are combating? The alternations for the young should be school and home. And it should be in the hearts to have confidence that forgiveness alternates with discipline. They are of too tender an age for the rigors of the world. We are in danger of hardening them. I have proved to you that I am not possessed of eloquence. You encourage me to speak, Sir Willoughby. You speak wisely, Laetitia. I think it true. Will not you reflect on it? You have only to do so to forgive him. I am growing bold indeed, and shall have to beg forgiveness for myself. You still write? You continue to work with your pen, said Willoughby. A little. A very little. Do not like you to squander yourself, waste yourself on the public. You are too precious to feed the beast. Giving out incessantly must end by attenuating. Reserve yourself for your friends. Why should they be robbed of so much of you? It is not reasonable to assume that by lying fellow you would be more enriched for domestic life. Candidly, had I authority, I would confiscate your pen. I would away with that bauble. You will not often find me quoting Cromwell, but his words apply in this instance. I would say rather that the Lancet. Perhaps it is the more correct term. It bleeds you. It wastes you. For what? For a breath of fame? A right for money. And there, I would say of another, you subject yourself to the risk of mental degradation. Who knows? Moral. Trafficking the brains for money would bring them to the level of the purchasers in time. I confiscate your pen, Laetitia. It will be to confiscate your own gifts, so will it be. Then that proves. Will you tell me the date? You sent me a gold pen holder on my 16th birthday. It proves my utter thoughtlessness then, and later, and later. He rested an elbow on his knee and covered his eyes, murmuring in that profound hollow which is haunted by the voice of a contrite past, and later. The deed could be done. He had come to the conclusion that it could be done, though the effort to harmonise the figure sitting near him with the artistic figure of his purest pigments had cost him labour and a blinking off the eyelids. That also could be done. Her pleasant tone, sensible talk, and the light favouring her complexion helped him in his effort. She was a sober cup, sober and wholesome. Deliriousness is for adolescents. The men who seek intoxicating cups are men who invite their fates. Curiously, yet as positively as things be affirmed, the husband of this woman would be able to boast of her virtues and treasures abroad. As he could not, impossible to say why not, boast of a beautiful wife or a blue-stocking wife. One of her merits as a wife would be this extraordinary neutral merit of a character that demanded colour from the marital hand and would take it. Laetitia had not to learn that he had much to distress him. Her wonder at his exposure off his grief counteracted a fluttering of vague alarm. She was nervous. She sat in expectation of some burst of regrets or of passion. I may hope that you have pardoned Cross Jay," she said. My friend said he, uncovering his face. I am governed by principles. Convince me of an error. I shall not obstinately pursue a premeditated cause. But you know me. Men who have not principles to rule their conduct are. Well, they are unworthy of half an hour of companionship with you. I will speak to you tonight. I have letters to dispatch. Tonight at twelve. In the room where we spoke last. Or await me in the drawing-room. I have to attend to my guest till late. He bowed. He was in a hurry to go. The deed could be done. It must be done. It was his destiny. End of chapter thirty-eight. Chapter thirty-nine of The Egoist. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Magdalena Cook. The Egoist by George Meredith. In the heart of The Egoist. But already he had begun to regard the deed as his executioner. He dreaded meeting Clara. The folly of having retained her stood before him. Hound now to look on her and keep a sane resolution unwavering. She tempted to the insane. Had she been away, he could have walked through the performance composed by the sense of doing a duty to himself. Perhaps faintly hating the poor wretch he made happy at last. Kind to her in a manner polite. Clara's presence in the house previous to the deed. And, oh heaven, after it threatened his wits. Pride? He had none. He cast it down for her to trample it. He caught it back ere it was trodden on. Perhaps he had pride. He had it as a dagger in his breast. His pride was his misery. But he was too proud to submit to misery. What I do is right. He said the words and rectitude smoothed his path till the question clamoured for answer. Would the world countenance and endorse his pride in Laetitia? At one time, yes. And now Clara's beauty ascended, laid a beam on him. We are on board the laboring vessel of humanity in a storm. When cries and counter-cries ring out, this orderliness mixes the crew and the fury of self-preservation divides. This one is for the ship, that one for his life. Clara was the former to him, Laetitia the latter. But what if there might not be greater safety in holding tenaciously to Clara than in casting her off for Laetitia? No, she had done things to set his pride's robbing in the quick. She had gone bleeding about first to one, then to another. She had betrayed him to Vernon and to Mrs. Mount Stewart. A look in the eyes of Horace Decray said to him as well, To whom not? He might hold to her for vengeance, but the appetite was short-lived in him if it ministered nothing to his purposes. I discard all idea of vengeance, he said, and thrilled burningly to a smart in his admiration of the man who could be so magnanimous under mortal injury. For the more admirable he, the more pitiable. He drank a drop or two of self-pity like a poison, repelling the assaults of public pity. Clara must be given up. It must be seen by the world that, as he felt, the thing he did was right. Leocoon of his own serpents. He struggled to a certain magnificence of attitude in the musculinette of constrictions he flung around himself. Clara must be given up. Oh, bright abominable! She must be given up. But not to one whose touch of her would be darts in the blood of the yielder, snakes in his bed. She must be given up to an extinguisher. To be the second wife of an old-fashioned semi-recluse, disgraced in his first. And were it publicly known that she had been cast off and had fallen on old Vernon for a refuge, and part in spite, part in shame, part in desperation, part in a fit of good sense under the circumstances, espoused him, her beauty would not influence the world in its judgment. The world would know what to think. As the instinct of self-preservation whispered to Willoughby, the world, were at requisite, might be taught to think what it assuredly would not think if she should be seen tripping to the altar with horrors to cray. Self-preservation, not vengeance, breathed that whisper. He glanced at her iniquity for a justification of it, without any desire to do her a permanent hurt. He was highly civilised, but with a strong intention to give her all the benefit of a scandal, supposing a scandal or ordinary tattle. And so he handed her to his cousin and secretary, Vernon Whitford, who opened his mouth and shut his eyes. You hear the world, how we to stop it from chattering, enough that he had no desire to harm her. Some gentle anticipations of her being tarnished were imperative. They came spontaneously to him. Otherwise the radiance of that bright abominable inloss would have been insufferable. He could not have borne it. He could never have surrendered her. Moreover, a happy press and effect was the result. He conjured up the anticipated chatter and shrug off the world so vividly that her beauty grew hectic with the stain. Bereft offers formidable magnetism. He could meet her calmly. He had steeled himself. Purity in women was his principal stipulation, and a woman puffed at was not the person to cause him tremors. Consider him indulgently. The egoist is the son of himself. He is likewise the father, and the son loves the father, the father the son. They reciprocate affection through the closest of ties, and shall they view behavior unkindly, wounding either of them, not for each other's dear sake or boring the criminal. They would not injure you, but they cannot consent to see one another suffer or crave in vain. Are you without much offending sacrificed by them? It is on the altar of their mutual love to fill your piety or paternal tenderness. The younger has offered a dainty morsel to the elder, or the elder to the younger. Absorbed in their great example of devotion, do they not think of you? They are beautiful. Yet is it most true that the younger has the passions of youth? Whereof will come division between them? And this is a tragic state. They are then pathetic. This was the state of Sir Willoughby lending ear to his elder, until he submitted to bite at the fruit proposed to him. With how rye a mouth the venerable senior chose not to mark, at least, as we perceive, a half of him was ripe of wisdom in his own interests. The crude a half had but to be abhorred, the crude a half had but to be obedient to the leadership of the sagacity for his interests to be secured. An affiliate disposition assisted him, painfully indeed. But the same rare quality directed the good gentleman to swallow his pain. That the son should be wail his fate were a dishonour to the sire. He reverenced and submitted. Thus, to say, consider him indulgently, is too much an appeal for charity on behalf of one requiring but initial anatomy. A slicing in halves. To exonerate, perchance exalt him. The egoist is a fountain-head, primeval man. The primitive is born again, the elemental reconstituted. Born again into new conditions, the primitive may be highly polished of men, and forfeit nothing save the roughness of his original nature. He is not only his own father, he is ours, and he is also our son. We have produced him, he us. Such were we, too such are we returning. Not other, sings the poet, than one who tallfully works his shell up against the tide. Sebrachia forti remisit. Let him happily relax the labour of his arms, however high up the stream, and back he goes. Impeaches. To the early principle of our being, with seeds and plants, that are as carelessly weighed in the hand, and as indiscriminately husbanded as our humanity. Poets on the other side may be cited for an assurance that the primitive is not the degenerate, rather is he a sign of the indestructibility of the race, of the ancient energy in removing obstacles to individual growth. The sample of what we would be had with his concentrated power. He is the original innocent, the pure simple. It is we who have fallen, we have melted into society, diluted our essence, dissolved. He stands in the midst, monumentally, a landmark of the tough and honest old ages. With the symbolic alphabet of striking arms and running legs, our early language scrawled over his person and the glorious first flint and arrowhead for his crest. At once the spectre of the kitchen midden and our ripest issue. But society is about him. The occasional spectacle of the primitive dangling on a rope has impressed his mind with the strength of his natural enemy, from which, uncongenial sight, he has turned shuddering, hardly less to behold the blast that is blown upon a reputation, where one has been disrespectful of the many. By these means, through meditation on the contrast of circumstances in life, a pulse of imagination has begun to stir, and he has entered the upper sphere or circle of spiritual egoism. He has become the civilised egoist. Primitive still, as sure as man has teeth, but developed in his manner of using them. Degenerate or not, and there is no just reason to suppose it, Sir Willoughby was a social egoist, fiercely imaginative in whatsoever concerned him. He had discovered a greater realm than that of the sensual appetites, and he rushes across and around in his conquering period with an Alexander's pride. On these wind-like journeys he had carried Constantia, subsequently Clara, and however it may have been in the case of Miss Durham. In that of Miss Middleton it is almost certain she caught a glimpse of his interior, from sheer fatigue in hearing him discourse of it. What he revealed was not the course of her sickness. Women can bear revelations. They are exciting, but the monotonousness. He slew imagination. There is no dyro-disaster in love than the death of imagination. He dragged her through the labyrinths of his penitralia in his hungry coveting to be loved more and still more, until imagination gave up the ghost, and he talked to her plain hearing like a monster. It must have been that, for the spell of the primitive upon women, is masterful up to the time of contact. And so he handed her to his cousin and secretary, Vernon Whitford, who opened his mouth and shut his eyes. The urgent question was how it was to be accomplished. Willoughby worked at the subject with all his power of concentration, a power that had often led him to feel and say that as a barrister, a diplomatist, or a general, he would have won his grades and granting him a personal interest in the business he might have achieved eminence. He schemed and fenced remarkably well. He projected a scene following expressions of anxiety on account of old Vernon and his future settlement, and then Clara maintaining her doggedness, to which he was now so accustomed that he could not conceive a change in it. Says he, If you determine on breaking I give you back your word on one condition. Whereupon she starts. He insists on her promise. She declines. Affairs resumed their former footing. She frets. She begs for the disclosure. He flatters her by telling her his desire to keep her in the family. She is unilluminated, but strongly moved by curiosity. He philosophizes on marriage. What are we? Poor creatures. We must get through life as we can, doing as much good as we can to those we love. And think as you please. I love old Vernon. Am I not giving you the greatest possible proof of it? She will not see. Then flatly out comes the one condition, that and no other. Take Vernon and I release you. She refuses. Now ensues the debate, all the oratory being with him. Is it because of his unfortunate first marriage? You assured me you thought no worse of him, etc. She declares the proposal revolting. He can distinguish nothing that should offend her in a proposal to make his cousin happy if she will not him. Irony and sarcasm relieve his emotions, but he convinces her he is dealing plainly and intends generosity. She is confused. She speaks in maiden fashion. He touches again on Vernon's early escapade. She does not enjoy it. The scene closes with his bidding her reflect on it. And remember the one condition of her release. Mrs. Mt. Stuart Jenkinson now reduced to believe that he burns to be free, is then called in for an interview with Clara. His Aunt Eleanor and Isabelle beseech her. Laetitia in passionate earnest beseech her. Her father is wrought on to beseech her. Finally Vernon is attacked by Willoughby and Mrs. Mt. Stuart. And here Willoughby chose to think was the main difficulty. But the girl has money. She is agreeable. Vernon likes her. She is fond of his Alps. They have taste in common. He likes her father. And in the end he beseeches her. Will she yield? Decray is absent. There is no other way of shunning a marriage. She is incomprehensibly but frantically averse to. She is in the toils. Her father will stay at Patton Hall as long as his host desires it. She hesitates. She is overcome. In spite of a certain nausea due to Vernon's preceding alliance she yields. Willoughby revolved the entire drama in Clara's presence. It helped him to look on her coolly. Conducting her to the dinner table he spoke of Cross Jay. Not unkindly. And at the table he revolved the set of scenes with a heated animation that took fire from the wine and the face of his friend Horace while he encouraged Horace to be flowingly Irish. He nipped the fellow good-humidly once or twice having never felt so friendly to him since the day of his arrival. But the position of critic is instinctively taken by men who do not flow. It kept Dr Middleton in a benevolent reserve when Willoughby decided that something said by Decray was not new and laughingly accused him of failing to consult his anecdotal notebook for the double-cross to his last brightly celly. Your cellies are excellent Horace but spear as you aren't cellies. Decray had no repartee nor did Dr Middleton challenge a pun. We have only to sharpen our wits to trip your seductive rattler whenever we may choose to think proper and evidently if we condescended to it we could do better than he. The critic who has hatched a witticism is impelled to this opinion. Judging of the smiles of the ladies they thought so too. Shortly before eleven o'clock Dr Middleton made a spartan stand against the offer of another bottle of port. The regulation couple of bottles had been consumed in equal partnership and the Reverend Doctor and his host were free to pay a ceremonial visit to the drawing room where they were not expected. A piece of work of the elder ladies a silken boudoir sofa rug was being examined with high approval of the two younger. Vernon and Colonel Decray had gone out in search of Cross J one to Mr Dale's Cottage the other to call at the head and under gamekeepers. They were said to be strolling and smoking for the night was fine. Willoughby left the room and came back with the key of Cross J's door in his pocket. He foresaw that the delinquent might be of service to him. Laetitia and Clara sang together. Laetitia was flushed Clara pale. At eleven they saluted the ladies Eleanor and Isabelle. Willoughby said good night to each of them. Contrasting as he did so the downcast look of Laetitia with Clara's frigid directness. He divined that they were off to talk over their one object of common interest, Cross J. Saluting his aunts he took up the rug to celebrate their diligence and taste and that he might make Dr Middleton impatient for bed he provoked him to admire it held it out and laid it out and caused the courteous old gentleman in hitting on fresh terms of commendation. Before midnight the room was empty. Ten minutes later Willoughby paid a visit and found it untenanted by the person he had engaged to be there. Vex spiced his appointment he paced up and down and chanced abstractly to catch the rug in his hand. For what purpose he might well ask himself admiration of ladies work in their absence was unlikely to occur to him. Nevertheless the touch of the warm soft silk was meltingly feminine. A glance at the mantle peace-clock told him Laetitia was twenty minutes behind the hour. Her remissness might endanger all his plans alter the whole course of his life. The colours in which he painted her were too lively to last the madness in his head threatened to subside. Certain it was that he could not be ready a second night for the sacrifice he had been about to perform. The clock was at the half-hour after twelve. He flung the silken thing on the central ottoman, extinguished the lamps and walked out of the room charging the absent Laetitia to bear her misfortune with the consciousness of deserving it.