 CHAPTER 40 Young Cross Jay was a glutton at holidays and never thought of home till it was dark. The close of days saw him several miles away from the hall, dubious whether he would not round his numerous adventures by sleeping at an inn, for he had lots of money and the idea of jumping up in the morning in a strange place was thrilling. Besides, when he was shaken out of sleep by Sir Willoughby, he had been told that he was to go, and not to show his face at Patern again. On the other hand, Miss Middleton had bitten him come back. There was little question with him which person he should obey. He followed his heart. supper at an inn where he found a company to listen to his adventures delayed him, and a shortcut intended to make up for it lost him his road. He reached the hall very late, ready to be in love with the horrible pleasure of a night's rest under the stars if necessary. But a candle burned at one of the back windows. He knocked and a kitchen maid let him in. She had a bowl of hot soup prepared for him. Cross Jay tried a mouthful to please her. His head dropped over it. She roused him to his feet, and he pitched against her shoulder. The dry air of the kitchen department have proved too much for the tired youngster. Mary, the maid, got him to step as firmly as he was able, and let him by the back way to the hall, bidding him creep noiselessly to bed. He understood his position in the house, and though he could have gone fast asleep on the stairs, he took a steady aim at his room and gained the door cat-like. The door resisted. He was appalled and unstrung in a minute. The door was locked. Cross Jay felt as if he were in the presence of Sir Willoughby. He fled on rickety legs and had a fall and bumps down half a dozen stairs. A door opened above. He rushed across the hall to the drawing-room, invitingly open, and there staggered in darkness to the ottoman, and rolled himself in something sleek and warm, the softest hands of ladies, and redolent of them, so delicious that he hugged the folds about his head and heels. While he was endeavouring to think where he was, his legs curled, his eyelids shut, and he was in the thick of the day's adventures, doing yet more wonderful things. He heard his own name, that was quite certain. He knew that he had heard it with his ears, as he pursued the fleet of streams ever a quarter to mortal. It did not mix. It was outside him, and like the danger pole in the ice, which the skater shooting hither and yonder comes on again. It recurred, and now it marked a point in his career how it caused him to relax his pace. He began to circle and world-closer around it, until, as the blow, his heart knocked, he tightened himself, thought of bolting, and lay dead still to throb and hearken. Oh, so Willoughby, a voice had said. The accents were sharp with alarm. My friend, my dearest, was the answer. I came to speak of Cross Jay. Will you sit here on the ottoman? No, I cannot wait. I hoped I had heard Cross Jay return. I would rather not sit down. May I entreat you to pardon him when he comes home? You, and only you, may do so. I permit no one else. Of Cross Jay tomorrow. He may be lying in the fields. We are anxious. The rascal can take pretty good care of himself. Cross Jay is perpetually meeting accidents. He shall be indemnified if he has had access of punishment. I think I will say good night, Sir Willoughby. When freely and unreservedly you have given me your hand, there was hesitation. To say good night, I ask you for your hand. Good night, Sir Willoughby. You do not give it? You are in doubt? Still? What language must I use to convince you? And yet you know me. Who knows me but you? You have always known me. You are my home and my temple. Have you forgotten your verses of the day of my majority? The dawn star has risen in plentitude of light. Do not repeat them, pray, cried Letitia with a gasp. I have repeated them to myself a thousand times. In India, America, Japan, they were like our English sky-lark, caroling to me. My heart now bursts thy prison with proud aerial flight. Oh, I beg you, you will not force me to listen to nonsense that I write when I was a child. No more of those foolish lines. If you knew what it is to write and despise one's writing, you would not distress me. And since you will not speak of Cross J tonight, allow me to retire. You know me, and therefore you know my contempt for verses, as a rural Letitia, but not for yours to me. Why should you call them foolish? They expressed your feelings, hold them sacred. They are something religious to me, not mere poetry. Perhaps the third verse is my favourite. It will be more than I can bear. You were in earnest when you wrote them. I was very young, very enthusiastic, very silly. You were and are my image of constancy. It is an error so will it be. I am far from being the same. We're older. I trust wiser. I am. I will own much wiser. Wiser at last. I offer you my hand. She did not reply. I offer you my hand and name, Letitia. No response. You think me bound in honour to another? She was mute. I am free. Thank heaven. I am free to choose my mate, the woman I have always loved, freely and unreservedly, as I ask you to give your hand. I offer mine. You are the mistress of Patern Hall, my wife. She had not a word. My dearest, do you not rightly understand? The hand I am offering you is disengaged. It is offered to the lady I respect above all others. I have made the discovery that I cannot love without respecting, and as I will not marry without loving, it ensues that I am free. I am yours. At last. Your lips move. Tell me the words. Have always loved, I said. You carry in your bosom the magnet of constancy, and I, in spite of apparent deviations, declare to you that I have never seized to be sensible of the attraction. And now there is not an impediment. We too, against the world, we are one. Let me confess to an old foyball, perfectly youthful, and you will ascribe it to youth, once I decide to absorb. I mistrusted. That was the reason. I perceive it. You teach me the difference of an alliance with a lady of intellect. The pride I have in you, Laetitia, definitely queers me of the insane passion. Call it an insatiable hunger. I recognise it as folly of youth. I have, as it were, gone the tour to come home to you, at last, and live our manly life of comparative equals. At last, then. But remember that in the younger man you would have had a despot, perhaps a jealous despot. Young men, I assure you, are orientally inclined in their ideas of love. Love gets a bad name from them. We, my Laetitia, do not regard love as a selfishness. If it is, it is the essence of life. At least it is our selfishness rendered beautiful. I talk to you like a man who has found a compatriot in a foreign land. It seems to me that I have not opened my mouth for an age. I certainly have not unlocked my heart. Those who sing for joy are not unintelligible to me. If I had not something in me worth saying, I think I should sing. In every sense you reconcile me to men and the world, Laetitia. Why press you to speak? I will be the speaker. As surely as you know me, I know you. And Laetitia bursts forth with, No. I do not know you, said he, searchingly malephalus. Hardly. How not? I am changed. In what way? Deeply. Sedata. Materially. Colour will come back. Have no fear. I promise it. If you imagine you want renewing, I have the specific. I, my love, I. Forgive me. Will you tell me, Sir Willoughby, whether you have broken with Miss Mendelton? Rest satisfied, my dear Laetitia. She is as free as I am. I can do no more than a man of honour should do. She releases me. Tomorrow or next day she departs. We, Laetitia, you and I, my love, are home birds. It does not do for the home bird to couple with the migratory. The little imperceptible change you allude to is nothing. Italy will restore you. I am ready to stake my own health. Never yet shaken by a doctor of medicine. I say medicine advisedly, for there are doctors of divinity who would shake giants. That an Italian trip will send you back. That I shall bring you home from Italy a blooming bride. You shake your head, despondently. My love, I guarantee it. Cannot I give you colour? Behold, come to the light. Look in the glass. I may redden, said Laetitia. I suppose that is due to the action of the heart. I am changed. Heart, for any other purpose, I have not. I am like you, Sir Willoughby, in this. I could not marry without loving. And I do not know what love is, except that it is an empty dream. Marriage, my dearest. You are mistaken. I will cure you, my Laetitia. Look to me. I am the tonic. It is not common confidence, but conviction. I, my love, I. There is no cure for what I feel, Sir Willoughby. Spare me the formal prefects. I beg. You place your hand in mine, relying on me. I am pledge for the remainder. We end as we began. My request is for your hand, your hand in marriage. I cannot give it. To be my wife? It is an honour. I must decline it. Are you quite well, Laetitia? I propose in the plainest terms I could employ to make you, Lady Patern. Mine. I am compelled to refuse. Why? Refuse? Your reason? The reason has been named. He took a stride to inspirate his wits. There's a madness comes over women at times. I know. Answer me, Laetitia, by all the evidence a man can have. I could swear it. But answer me. You loved me once. I was an exceedingly foolish romantic girl. You evade my question. I am serious. He walked away from her, birming a sound of utter repudiation of her present imbecility, and hurrying to her side said, But it was manifest to the whole world. It was a legend. To love Laetitia Dale was a current phrase. You were an example, a light to women. No one was your match for devotion. You were a precious cameo, still gazing. And I was the object. You loved me. You loved me. You belonged to me. You were mine. My possession, my jewel. I was prouder of your constancy than of anything else that I had on earth. It was a part of the order of the universe to me. A doubt of it would have disturbed my creed. Why, good heaven, where are we? Is nothing solid on earth? You loved me. I was childish indeed. You loved me passionately. Do you insist on shaming me through and through, Sir Willoughby? I have been exposed enough. You cannot blot out the past. It is written. It is recorded. You loved me devotely. Silence is no escape. You loved me. I did. You never loved me, you shallow woman. I did. As if there could be a cessation of a love. What are we to reckon on as ours? We price a woman's love. We guard it jealously. We trust to it. Dream of it. There is our wealth. There is our talisman. And when we open the casket it is flown. Barren vacuity. We are poorer than dogs. As well think of keeping a costly wine in potter's clay, as love in the heart of a woman. There are women. Women. Oh, they are all of a stamp coin. Coin for any hand. It's a fiction, an imposture. They cannot love. They are the shadows of men. Compared with men they have as much heart in them as the shadow beside the body. They teach her. Sir Willoughby, you refuse my offer? I must. You refuse to take me for your husband? I cannot be your wife. You have changed. You have set your heart? You could marry. There is a man. You could marry one. I will have an answer. I am sick of evasions. What was in the mind of heaven when women were created will be the riddle to the end of the world. Every good man in turn has made the inquiry. I have a right to know who robs me. We may try as we like to solve it. Satan is painted laughing. I say, I have a right to know who robs me. Answer me. I shall not marry. That is not an answer. I love no one. You loved me. You are silent. But you confessed it. Then you confess it was a love that could die. Are you unable to perceive how that redounds to my discredit? You loved me. You have ceased to love me. In other words, you charged me with incapacity to sustain a woman's love. You accused me of inspiring a miserable passion that cannot last a lifetime. You let the world see that I am a man to be aimed at for a temporary remark, and simply because I happen to be in your neighbourhood at an age when a young woman is impressionable. You make a public example of me, as the for whom women may have caprice. But that is all. He cannot enchain them. He fascinates passingly. They fall off. Is it just for me to be taken up and cast down at your will? Reflect on that scandal. Shadows. Why, a man's shadow is faithful to him at least. What are women? There is not a comparison in nature that does not tower above them. Not one that does not hoot at them. I, throughout my life, guided by absolute deference to their weakness. Paying them politeness, courtesy. Whatever I touch, I am happy in, except when I touch women. How is it? What is the mystery? Some monstrous explanation must exist. What can it be? I am favoured by fortune from my birth until I enter into relations with women. But will you be so good as to account for it in your defence of them? Oh, were the relations dishonourable, it would be quite another matter. Then they, I could recount. I disdain to chronicle such victories. Quite another matter. But they are flies, and I am something more stable. They are flies. I look beyond the day. I owe a duty to my line. They are flies. I foresee it. I shall be crossed in my fate so long as I fail to shun them. Flies. Not merely born for the day. I maintain that they are spiritually ephemeral. Well, my opinion of your sex is directly traceable to you. You may alter it, or fling another of us men out on the world with the old bitter experience. Consider this, that it is on your head if my ideal of women is wrecked. It rests with you to restore it. I love you. I discover that you are the one woman I have always loved. I come to you. I see you. And suddenly you have changed. I have changed. I am not the same. What can it mean? I cannot marry. I love no one. And you say you do not know what love is, avowing in the same breath that you did love me. Am I the empty dream? My hand, heart, fortune, name are yours at your feet. You kick them hence. I am here. You reject me. But why? For what more to reason am I here other than my faith in your love? You drew me to you. To repel me and have a wretched revenge? You know it is not that, so will it be. Have you any possible suspicion that I am still entangled, not as I assured you I am, perfectly free in fact and in honour? It is not that. Name it, for you see your power. Would you have me kneel to you, madam? I know it would complete my grief. You feel grief? Then you believe in my affection, and you hurl it away. I have no doubt that as a poetess you would say, love is eternal. And you have loved me, and you tell me you love me no more. You are not very logical, Laetitia Dale. Poetesses really are, if I am one, which a little pretend to be for writing silly verses. I have passed out of that delusion, with the rest. You shall not wrong those dear old days, Laetitia. I see them now, when I rode by your cottage and you were at your window, pen in hand, your hair straying over your forehead. Romantic, yes, not foolish. Why were you foolish in thinking of me? Someday I will commission an artist to paint me that portrait of you from my description. And I remember when we first whispered, I remember your trembling. You have forgotten, I remember. I remember our meeting in the park on the path to church. I remember the heavenly morning of my return from my travels. And the same Laetitia meeting me, steadfast and unchangeable. Could I ever forget? Those are ineradicable scenes, pictures of my youth, interwound with me. I may say that as I recede from them, I dwell on them the more. Tell me, Laetitia, was there not a certain prophecy of your father's concerning us, too? I fancy I heard of one. There was one. He was an invalid, elderly people, nurse illusions. Ask yourself, Laetitia, who is the obstacle to this fulfilment of his prediction? Truth, if ever a truth was foreseen on earth. You have not changed so far that you would feel no pleasure in gratifying him? I go to him tomorrow morning with the first light. You will compel me to follow and undercede him. Do so, and I denounce an unworthy affection you are ashamed to avow. That would be idle, though it would be base. Proof of love, then, for no one but you should it be done, and no one but you dare accuse me of abaseness. So will it be, you will let my father die in peace. He and I together will contrive to persuade you. You tempt me to imagine that you want to wife at any cost. You, Laetitia, you! I am tired, she said. It is late. I would rather not hear more. I am sorry if I have caused you pain. I suppose you have spoken with candour. I defend neither my sex nor myself. I can only say I am a woman as good as dead. Happy to be made happy in my way, but so little alive that I cannot realise any other way. As for love, I am thankful to have broken a spell. You have a younger woman in your mind. I am an old one. I have no ambition and no warmth. My utmost prayer is to float on the stream. A purely physical desire of life. I have no strength to swim. Such a woman is not the wife for you, so will it be. Good night. One final word. Way it. Express no conventional regrets. Resolutely, you refuse. Resolutely, I do. You refuse. Yes. I have sacrificed my pride for nothing. You refuse. Yes. Humboldt myself, and this is the answer. You do refuse. I do. Good night, Laetitia Dale. He gave her passage. Good night, so will it be. I am in your power, he said, in a voice between supplication and menace that laid a claw on her. And she turned and replied, You will not be betrayed. I can trust you. I go home tomorrow before breakfast. Permit me to escort you upstairs. If you please, but I see no one here either tonight or tomorrow. It is for the privilege of seeing the last of you. They withdrew. Young Cross Jay listened to the drumming of his head. Somewhere in or over the cavity, a drummer rattled tremendously. So will it be his laboratory door shut with a slam. Cross Jay tumbled himself off the otterman. He stole up to the unclosed drawing-room door and peeped. Never was the boy more thoroughly awakened. His object was to get out of the house and go through the night avoiding everything human. For he was big with information of a character that he knew to be of the nature of gunpowder, and he feared to explode. He crossed the hall. In the passage to the scullery, he ran against Colonel Decray. So there you are, said the Colonel. I've been hunting you. Cross Jay related that his bedroom door was locked and the key gone, and so will it be sitting up in the laboratory. Colonel Decray took the boy to his own room where Cross Jay lay on the sofa. Comfortably covered over and snug in a swelling pillow. But he was restless. He wanted to speak, to bellow, to cry. And he bounced round to his left side and bounced to his right, not knowing what to think, except that there was treason to his adored Miss Middleton. Why, my lad, you're not half a campaigner, the Colonel called out to him, attributing his uneasiness to the material discomfort of the sofa. And Cross Jay had to swallow the taunt, bitter though it was, a dim sentiment of impropriety in unburdening his overcharged mind on the subject of Miss Middleton to Colonel Decray, restrained him from defending himself. And so he heaved and tossed about till daybreak. At an early hour, while his hospitable friend, who looked very handsome in profile, half breast and head above the sheets, continued to slumber. Cross Jay was on his legs and away. He says, I'm not half a campaigner, and a couple of hours of bed are enough for me. The boy thought proudly and snuffed the springing air of the young sun on the fields. A glance back up a turn hall dismayed him, for he knew not how to act. And he was immoderately combustible, too full of knowledge for self-containment, much too cellously excited on behalf of his dear Miss Middleton to keep silent for many hours of the day. End of Chapter 40 Chapter 41 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 Linda Woods The Egoist by George Meredith Chapter 41 The Reverend Dr. Middleton, Clara, and Sir Willoughby When Master Cross Jay tumbled down the stairs, Leticia was in Clara's room, speculating on the various mishaps which might have befallen that battered youngster. And Clara listened anxiously after Leticia had run out, until she heard Sir Willoughby's voice, which in some way satisfied her that the boy was not in the house. She waited, expecting Miss Dale to return, then undressed, went to bed, tried to sleep. She was tired of strife, strange thoughts for a young head shocked through her, as that it is possible for the sense of duty to counteract a taste, and that one may live a life apart from one's admirations and dislikes. She owned the singular strength of Sir Willoughby in outwearing. She asked herself how much she had gained by struggling. Every effort seemed to expend her spirit's force, and rendered her less able to get the clear vision of her prospects, as though it had sunk her deeper, the contrary of her intention, to make each further step confirm her liberty. Looking back, she marveled at the things she had done, looking round how ineffectual they appeared. She had still the great scene of positive rebellion to go through with her father. The anticipation of that was the cause of her extreme discouragement. He had not spoken to her since he became aware of her attempted flight, but the scene was coming, and besides the wish not to inflict it on him, as well as to escape it herself, the girl's peculiar unhappiness lay in her knowledge that they were alienated and stood opposed, owing to one among the more perplexing masculine weaknesses which she could not hint at, dared barely think of, and would not name in her meditations. Diverting to other subjects, she allowed herself to exclaim, wine, wine, and renewed wonder of what there could be in wine to entrap venerable men and obscure their judgments. She was too young to consider that her being very much in the wrong gave all the importance to the cordial glass, and a venerable gentleman's appreciation of his dues. Why should he fly from a priceless wine to gratify the caprices of a fantastical child guilty of seeking to commit a breach of faith? He harped on those words. Her fault was grave. No doubt the wine colored it to him as a drop or two will do in any cop. Still, her fault was grave. She was too young for such considerations. She was ready to expatiate on the gravity of her fault so long as the humiliation assisted to her disentanglement. Her snared nature in the toils would not permit her to reflect on it further. She had never accurately perceived it, for the reason perhaps that Willoughby had not been moving in his appeals. But admitting the charge of waywardness, she had come to terms with conscience, upon the understanding that she was to perceive it and regret it and do penance for it by and by, by renouncing marriage altogether, how light a penance. In the morning she went to Letitia's room, knocked, and had no answer. She was informed at the breakfast table of Miss Dale's departure. The ladies, Eleanor and Isabel, feared it to be a case of urgency at the cottage. No one had seen Vernon, and Clara requested Colonel Decret to walk over to the cottage for news of Cross Jay. He accepted the commission simply to obey and be in her service, assuring her, however, that there was no need to be disturbed about the boy. He would have told her more had not Dr. Middleton let her out. Sir Willoughby marked a lapse of ten minutes by his watch. His excellent aunts had ventured a comment on his appearance that frightened him lest he himself should be the person to betray his astounding discomforture. He regarded his conduct as an act of madness, and Letitia's as no less that of a mad woman, happily mad, very happily mad indeed. Her rejection of his ridiculously generous proposal seemed to show an intervening hand in his favor that sent her distraught at the right moment. He entirely trusted her to be discreet, but she was a miserable creature who had lost the one last chance offered her by providence and furnished him with a single instance of the mediocrity of woman's love. Time was flying. In a little while, Mrs. Mount Stewart would arrive. He could not fence her without a design in his head. He was destitute of an armory if he had no scheme. He wracked the brain only to succeed in rousing phantasmal vapors. Her infernal, twice, would cease now to apply to Letitia. It would be an echo of Lady Bush. Nay were all in the secret, thrice jilted, might become the universal roar, and this, he reflected bitterly, of a man whom nothing but duty to his line had arrested from being the most mischievous of his class with women. Such is our reward for uprightness. At the expiration of 15 minutes by his watch, he struck a knuckle on the library door. Dr. Middleton held it open to him. You're disengaged, sir? The sermon is upon the paragraph which is toned to awaken the clerk, replied the Reverend Doctor. Clara was weeping. Sir Willoughby drew near her solicitously. Dr. Middleton's mane of silvery hair was in a stage bearing witness to the vehemence of the sermon, and Willoughby said, I hope, sir, you have not made too much of a trifle. I believe, sir, that I have produced an effect, and that was the point in contemplation. Clara, my dear Clara, Willoughby touched her. She sincerely repents her conduct. I may inform you, said Dr. Middleton. My love, Willoughby whispered, we have had a misunderstanding. I am at a loss to discover where I have been guilty. But I take the blame, all the blame. I implore you not to weep. Do me the favor to look at me. I would not have had you subjected to any interrogation whatever. You are not to blame, Clara said on Assab. Undoubtedly Willoughby is not to blame. It was not he who was bound on a runaway errand and flagrant breach of duty and decorum, nor he who inflicted a guitar on a brother of my craft and cloth, said her father. The clerk, sir, has pronounced amen, observed Willoughby. And no man is happier to hear an ejaculation that he has labored for with so much sweat of his brow than the person I can assure you, Dr. Middleton mildly groaned. I have notions of the trouble of Abraham. A sermon of that description is an immolation of the parent, however it may go with the child. Willoughby soothed his Clara. I wish I had been here to share it. I might have saved you some tears. I may have been hasty in our little dissensions. I will acknowledge that I have been. My temper is often irascible. And so is mine, exclaimed Dr. Middleton, and yet I am not aware that I made the worst husband for it. Nor do I rightly comprehend how a probably justly excitable temper can stand for a plea in mitigation of an attempt at an outrageous breach of faith. The sermon is over, sir. Reverberations, the Reverend Dr. Wavet has armpluckably. Take it for thunder heard remote. Your hand, my love, Willoughby murmured. The hand was not put forth. Dr. Middleton remarked the fact. He walked to the window and, perceiving the pair in the same position when he faced about, he delivered a cough of admonition. It is cruel, said Clara, that the owner of your hand should petition you for it, inquired her father. She sought refuge in a fit of tears. Willoughby bent above her mute. Is a scene that is hardly conceivable as a parent's obligation, once an illustrum, to be repeated within the half hour? shouted her father. She drew up her shoulders and shook. Let them fall and dropped her head. My dearest, your hand fluted, Willoughby. The hand surrendered. It was much like an icicle of a sudden thaw. Willoughby squeezed it to his ribs. Dr. Middleton marched up and down the room with his arms locked behind him. The silence between the young people seemed to denounce his presence. He said cordially, Old Hymns has but to withdraw for buds diverse. Yum, where Igalidos refer to poise. The equinoxial fury departs. I will leave you for a time. Clara and Willoughby simultaneously raised their faces with opposing expressions. My girl, her father stood by her, laying gentle hand on her. Yes, papa, I will come out to you. She replied to his apology for the rather heavy weight of his vocabulary and smiled. No, sir, I beg you will remain, said Willoughby. I keep you frostbound. Clara did not deny it. Willoughby emphatically did. Then which of them was the more lover like? Dr. Middleton would for the moment have supposed his daughter. Clara said, Shall you be on the lawn, papa? Willoughby interposed. Stay, sir. Give us your blessing. That you have, Dr. Middleton hastily motioned the paternal ceremony in outline. A few minutes, papa, said Clara. Will she name the day? came eagerly from Willoughby. I cannot, Clara cried in extremity. The day is important on its arrival, said her father. But I apprehend the decision to be of the chief importance at present. First, prime your piece of artillery, my friend. The decision is taken, sir. Then I will be out of the way of the firing. Hit what day, you please? Clara checked herself on an impetuous exclamation. It was done that her father might not be detained. Her astute self-compression sharpened Willoughby as much as it mortified and terrified him. He understood how he would stand in an instant, were Dr. Middleton absent. Her father was the tribunal she dreaded. An affairs must be settled and made irrevocable while he was with them. To sting the blood of the girl, he called her his darling, and half-enwound her, shadowing forth a salute. She strung her body to submit, seeing her father take it as a signal for his immediate retirement. Willoughby was upon him before he reached the door. Here's out, sir. Do not go. Stay at my entreaty. I fear we have not come to a perfect reconcilement. If that is your opinion, said Clara, it is good reason for not distressing my father. Dr. Middleton, I love your daughter. I wooed her and won her. I had your consent to our union, and I was the happiest of mankind. In some way, since her coming to my house, I know not how she will not tell me or cannot, I offended. One may be innocent and offend. I have never pretended to impeccability. Which is an admission that I may very naturally offend. My appeal to her is for an explanation or for pardon. I obtained neither. Had our positions been reversed, oh, not for any real offense, not for the worst that can be imagined, I think not, I hope not, could I have been tempted to propose the dissolution of our engagement? To love is to love with me. An engagement, a solemn bond. With all my errors, I have that merit of utter fidelity, to the world laughable. I confess to a multitude of errors. I have that single merit, and am not the more estimable in your daughter's eyes on account of it, I fear. In plain words, I am, I do not doubt, one of the fools among men, of the description of human dog, commonly known as faithful, whose destiny is that of a tribe. A man who cries out when he is heard is absurd, and I am not asking for sympathy. Call me luckless. But I abhor a breach of faith. A broken pledge is hateful to me. I should regard it myself as a form of suicide. There are principles which civilized men must contend for. Our social fabric is based on them. As my word stands for me, I hold others to theirs. If that is not done, the world is more or less a carnival of counterfeits. In this instance, ah, Clara, my love, and you have principles. You have inherited, you have been indoctrinated with them. Have I then, in my ignorance, offended past penitence, that you of all women, and without being able to name my sin? Not only for what I lose by it, but in the abstract, judicially, apart from the sentiment of personal interest, grief, pain, and the possibility of my having to endure that which no temptation would induce me to commit. Judicially, I fear, sir. I am a poor forensic orator. The situation, sir, does not demand a Cicero. Proceed, said Dr. Middleton, balked in his approving nods at the right true things delivered. Judicially, I am bold to say, though it may appear presumption in one's suffering acutely, I abhor a breach of faith. Dr. Middleton brought his nod down low upon the phrase he had anticipated, and I, said he, personally and presently, abhor a breach of faith. Judicially, judicially to examine, judicially to condemn, but does the judicial mind detest? I think, sir, we are not on the bench when we say that we abhor. We have unseated ourselves. Yet our abhorrence of bad conduct is very certain. You would signify, impersonally, which suffices for this exposition of your feelings. He peered at the gentleman under his brows and resumed, She has had it, Willoughby. She has had it in plain Saxon and in uncompromising Olympian. There is, I conceive, no necessity to revert to it. Pardon me, sir, but I am still unforgiven. You must babble out the rest between you. I am about as much at home as a turkey with a pair of pigeons. Leave us, Father, said Clara. First, join our hands and let me give you that title, sir. Reach the good man to your hand, Clara, forthright, from the shoulder, like a brave boxer. Humor lover, he asked for his own. It is more than I can do, Father. How? It is more than you could do. You are engaged to him, a plighted woman. I do not wish to marry. The apology is inadequate. I am unworthy. Chatter, chatter. I beg him to release me. Lunacy! I have no love to give him. Have you gone back to your cradle, Clara Middleton? Oh, leave us, dear Father. My offense, Clara, my offense. What is it? Will you only name it? Father, will you leave us? We can better speak together. We have spoken, Clara. How often will we be resumed? With what result? That you loved me, that you have ceased to love me, that your heart is mine, that you have withdrawn it, plucked it from me, that you request me to consent to a sacrifice involving my reputation, my life. And what have I done? I am the same unchangeable. I loved and love you. My heart was yours and is and will be yours forever. You are my affianced. That is my wife. What have I done? It is, indeed, useless, Clara sighed. Not useless, my girl, that you should inform this gentleman, your affianced husband, of the ground of the objection you conceived against him. I cannot say. Do you know? If I could name it, I could hope to overcome it. Dr. Middleton addressed Sir Willoughby. I barely believe we are directing the girl to dissect a coprice. Such things are seen large by these young people, but as they have neither organs nor arteries nor brains nor membranes, dissection and inspection will be alike profitlessly practiced. Your inquiry is natural for a lover whose passion to enter into relations with the sex is ordinarily in proportion to his ignorance of the stuff composing them. At a particular age they traffic in whims, which are, I presume, the spiritual hysterics, and are indubitably preferable so long as they are not pushed too far. Examples are not wanting to prove that a flighty initiative on the part of the male is a handsome corrective. In that case we should probably have had the roof off the house and the girl now at your feet. Ha! Despise me, Father. I am punished for ever thinking myself the superior of any woman, said Clara. Your hand out to him, my dear, since he is for a formal reconciliation, and I can't wonder. Father, I have said I do not. I have said I cannot buy the most merciful. What? What? The name for it, words for it. Do not frown on me, Father. I wish him happiness. I cannot marry him. I do not love him. You will remember that you informed me a foretime that you did love him. I was ignorant. I did not know myself. I wish him to be happy. You deny him the happiness you wish him. It would not be for his happiness were I to wed him. Oh, burst from Willoughby. You hear him. He rejects your prediction, Claire Middleton. She caught her clasped hands up to her throat. Wretched, wretched, both. And you have not a word against him, miserable girl? Miserable. I am. It is the cry of an animal. Yes, Father. You feel like one? Your behaviors of that shape. You have not a word against myself, not against him. And I, when you speak so generously, am to yield you, give you up, cried Willoughby. Ah, my love, my Claire, impose what you will on me. Not that. It is too much for man. It is I swear it beyond my strength. Pursue, continue the strain, tis in the right key, said Dr. Middleton departing. Willoughby wheeled and waylaid him with a bound. Plead for me, sir. You are all powerful. Let her be mine. She shall be happy, or I will perish for it. I will call it on my head. Impossible. I cannot lose her. Lose you, my love. It would be to strip myself of every blessing of body and soul. It would be to deny myself possession of grace, beauty, wit, all the incomparable charms of loveliness of mind and person and woman, and plant myself in a desert. You are my mate, the sum of everything I call mine. Clara, I should be less than man to submit to such a loss. Consent to it? But I love you. I worship you. How can I consent to lose you? He saw the eyes of the desperately wily young woman slink sideways. Dr. Middleton was pacing at ever shorter lengths, closer by the door. You hate me? Willoughby sunk his voice. If it should turn to hate, she murmured. Hatred of your husband? I could not promise, she murmured more softly in her wailiness. Hatred, he cried aloud. And Dr. Middleton stopped in his walk and flung up his head. Hatred of your husband? Of the man you have vowed to love and honor? Oh, no. Once mine, it is not to be feared. I trust to my knowledge of your nature. I trust in your blood. I trust in your education. Had I nothing else to inspire confidence, I could trust in your eyes. And Clara, take the confession. I would rather be hated than lose you. For if I lose you, you are in another world out of this one holding me in its death like cold. But if you hate me, we are together. We are still together. Any alliance, any in preference to separation. Clara listened with critical ear. His language and tone were new, and comprehending that they were in part addressed to her father, whose phrase, a breach of faith, he had so cunningly used, disdain of the actor prompted the extreme blunder of her saying, frigidly though she said it. You have not talked to me in this way before. Finally, remarked her father, summing up the situation to settle it from that little speech. He talks to you in this way now, and you are undermined junction to stretch your hand out to him for a symbol of union, or to state your objection to that course. He, by your admission, is at the terminus, and there, failing the why not, must you join him. Her head whirled. She had been severely flagellated and weak and previous to Willoughby's entrance. Language to express her peculiar repulsion eluded her. She formed the words and perceived that they would not stand to bear a breath from her father. She perceived, too, that Willoughby was as ready with his agony of supplication as she with hers. If she had tears for a resource, he had gestures quite as eloquent, and a cry of her loathing of the union would fetch a countervailing torrent of the man's love. What could she say? He is an egoist. The epithet has no meaning in such a scene. Invent shrieked the hundred-voiced instinct of dislike within her, and alone with her father, alone with Willoughby, she could have invented some equivalent to do her heart justice for the injury it sustained in for being unable to name the true and immense objection. But the parent presence paralyzed her. She dramatized them, each springing forward by turns with crushing rejoiners. The activity of her mind reveled in giving them a tongue, but would not do it for herself. Then ensued the inevitable consequence of an incapacity to speak at the heart's urgent dictate. Heart and mind became divided. One throbbed hotly, the other hung aloof, and mentally, while the sick, inarticulate heart, kept clamoring, she answered it with all that she imagined for those two men to say. And she dropped poison on it to still its reproaches. Beating herself, remember her fatal postponements in order to preserve the seeming of consistency before her father. Calling it hypocrite, asking herself what was she who loved her, and thus beating down her heart, she completed the mischief with a piercing view of the foundation of her father's advocacy of Willoughby, and more lamentably asked herself what her value was if she stood bereft of respect for her father. Reason, on the other hand, was animated by her better nature to plead his case against her. She clung to her respect for him and felt herself drowning with it. And she echoed Willoughby consciously, doubling her horror with the consciousness in crying out on a world where the most sacred feelings are subject to such lapses. It doubled her horror that she should echo the man, but it proved that she was no better than he, only some years younger. Those years would soon be outlived, after which he and she would be of a pattern. She was unloved. She did no harm to anyone by keeping her word to this man. She had pledged it, and it would be a breach of faith not to keep it. No one loved her. Behold the quality of her father's love. To give him happiness was now the principle aimed for her, her own happiness being decently buried. And here he was happy. Why should she be the cause of his going and losing the poor pleasure he so much enjoyed? The idea of her devotedness flattered her feebleness. She betrayed signs of hesitation. And in hesitating, she looked away from a look at Willoughby, thinking so much against her nature wasn't to resign herself to him, that it would not have been so difficult with an ill-favored man, with one horribly ugly would have been a horrible exultation to cast off her youth and take the fiendish leap. Unfortunately for Sir Willoughby, he had his reasons for pressing impatience. And seeing her deliberate, seeing her hasty look at his fine figure, his opinion of himself combined with his recollection of a particular maxim of the great book to assure him that her resistance was over, chiefly owing, as he supposed, to his physical perfections. Frequently, indeed, in the contest between gentlemen and ladies, have the maxims of the books stimulated the assailant to victory. They are rosy with blood of victims. To bear them is to hear a horn that blows the mort, has blown it a thousand times. It is good to remember how often they have succeeded when, for the benefit of some future Lady Valvin, who may be stir her wits to gather maxims for the inspiriting of the defense, the circumstance of a failure has to be recorded. Willoughby could not wait for the melting of the snows. He saw full surely the dissolving process, and sincerely admiring and coveting her as he did, rashly this ill-fated gentleman attempted to precipitate it, and so doing arrested. Wents might we draw a note from yonder maxim, and words akin to these. Make certain ere a breath come from thee that thou be not a frost. Mine, she's mine, he cried, mine once more, mine utterly, mine eternally. And he followed up his devouring exclamations in person as she, lest decidedly retreated. She retreated as young ladies should ever do, two or three steps, and he would not notice that she had become an angry Diane, all arrows. Her maidenliness in surrendering pleased him. Grasping one fair hand, he just allowed her to edge on the outer circle of his embrace, crying, Not a syllable of what I have gone through. You shall not have to explain it, my Clara. I will study you more diligently to be guided by you, my darling. If I offend again, my wife will not find it hard to speak what my bride withheld. I do not ask why. Perhaps not able to weigh the effect of her reticence, not at that time, when she was younger and less experienced, estimating the sacredness of a plighted engagement. It's past we are one, my dear sir and father, you may leave us now. I profoundly rejoice to hear that I may, said Dr. Middleton. Clara writhed her captured hand. No, papa, stay. It's an error, an error. You must not leave me. Do not think me utterly eternally belonging to anyone but you. No one shall say I am his but you. Are you quicksand, Clara Middleton, that nothing can be built on you? Whither is a flighty head and a shifty will carrying this girl? Clara and I, sir, said Willoughby. And so you shall, said the doctor turning about. Not yet, papa, Clara sprang to him. Why, you, you, you, it was you who craved to be alone with Willoughby, her father shouted. And here we are, rounded to our starting point, with the solitary difference that now you do not want to be alone with Willoughby. First I'm bidden go, next I'm pulled back. And judging by collar and coat tag, I suspect you to be a young woman to wear an angel's temper threadbare before you determine upon which one of the tides driving him to and fro you intend to launch on yourself. Where is your mind? Clara smoothed her forehead. I wish to please you, papa. I request you to please the gentleman who is your appointed husband. I am anxious to perform my duty. That should be a satisfactory basis for you, Willoughby, as girls go. Let me, sir, simply entreat to have her hand in mind before you. Why not, Clara? Well, why an empty ceremony, papa? The implication is that she is prepared for the important one, friend Willoughby. Her hands, sir, the reassurance of her hand in mine under your eyes. After all that I have suffered, I claim it. I think I claim it reasonably to restore me to confidence. Quite reasonably, which is not to say necessarily. But I will add justifiably, and it may be sagaciously when dealing with the volatile. And here, said Willoughby, is my hand. Clara recoiled. He stepped on her father frowned. She lifted both her hands from the shrinking elbows, darted a look of repulsion at her pursuer, and ran to her father crying. Call it my mood! I'm volatile, capricious, flighty, very foolish. But you see that I attach a real meaning to it and feel it to be binding. I cannot think in an empty ceremony if it is before you. Yes, only be a little considerate to your moody girl. She will be in a fitter state in a few hours. Spare me this moment. I must collect myself. I thought I was free. I thought he would not press me. If I give my hand hurriedly now, I shall I know immediately repent it. There is the picture of me. But, papa, I mean to try to be above that. And if I go and walk by myself, I shall grow calm to perceive where my duty lies. In which direction shall you walk? said Willoughby. Wisdom is not upon a particular road, said Dr. Middleton. I have a dreadsure of that one which leads to the railway station. With some justice, Dr. Middleton sighed over his daughter. Claire colored to deep crimson. But she was beyond anger and was rather gratified by an offense coming from Willoughby. I will promise not to leave his grounds, papa. My child, you have threatened to be a breaker of promises. Oh, she wailed. But I will make it a vow to you. Why not make a vow to me this moment for this gentleman's contentment that he shall be your husband within a given period? I will come to you voluntarily. I burn to be alone. I shall lose her, exclaimed Willoughby and heartfelt earnest. How so, said Dr. Middleton? I have her, sir, if you will favor me by continuing in abeyance. You will come within an hour voluntarily, Claire, and you will either at once yield your hand to him, or you will furnish reasons, and they must be good ones for withholding it. Yes, papa, you will? I will. Mind I say reasons? Reasons, papa. If I have none, if you have none that are to my satisfaction, you implicitly and instantly and cordially obey my command. I will obey. What more would you require, Dr. Middleton? Bow to Sir Willoughby and try out. Will she, sir, sir? She's your daughter, sir. I'm satisfied. She has perchance wrestled with her engagement as the aboriginals of a land newly discovered by a crew of adventurous colonists do battle with the garments imposed on them by our considerate civilization, ultimately to rejoice with excessive dignity in the wearing of a battered cock-tat and trousers not extending to the shanks. But she did not break her engagement, sir, and we will anticipate that, moderating a young woman's native wildness, she may, after the manner of my comparison, take a similar pride in her fortune in good season. Willoughby had not leisure to sound the depth of Dr. Middleton's compliment. He had seen Claire gliding out of the room during the delivery, and his fear returned on him that not being one, she was lost. She has gone, her father noticed her absence. She does not waste time in her mission to procure that astonishing product of a shallow soil, her reasons, if such be the object of her search. But, no, it signifies that she deems herself to have need of a composure, nothing more. No one likes to be turned about, we like to turn ourselves about. And in the question of an act to be committed, we stipulate that it shall be our act, girls and others. After the lapse of an hour, it will appear to her as her act. Happily, Willoughby, we do not dine away from pattern tonight. No, sir. It may be attributable to a sense of deserving, but I could plead guilty to a weakness for our old port today. There shall be an extra bottle, sir, all going favorably with you, as I have no cause to doubt, said Dr. Middleton, with the motion of wafting his host out of the library. Chapter 42 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 Linda Woods The Egoist by George Meredith Chapter 42 Shows the Divining Arts of a Perceptive Mind Starting from the hall a few minutes before Dr. Middleton and Sir Willoughby had entered the drawing room overnight, Vernon parted company with Colonel Decret at the Park Gates, and betook himself to the Cottage of the Dales where nothing had been heard of his wanderer. And he received the same disappointing reply from Dr. Corny out of the bedroom window of the genial physician, whose astonishment at his covering so long a stretch of road at night for news of a boy like Cross J, gifted with the lives of a cat, became violent and wrapped punch-like blows on the window sill at Vernon's refusal to take shelter and rest. Vernon's excuse was that he had no one but that fellow to care for, and he strode off, naming a farm five miles distant. Dr. Corny howled an invitation to early breakfast to him in the event of his passing on his way back, and retired to bed to think of him. The result of a variety of conjectures caused him to set Vernon down as Ms. Middleton's night, and he felt a strong compassion for his poor friend. Though he a hopeless attachment is as pretty an accompaniment to the tune of life as a gentleman might wish to have, for it's one of those big doses of discord which make all the minor ones fit in like an agreeable harmony, and so he shuffles along as pleasantly as the fortune favored when they come to compute. Sir Willoughby was the fortune favored in the little doctor's mind, that high-stepping gentleman having wealth and public consideration, and the most ravishing young lady in the world for a bride. Still, though he reckoned all these advantages enjoyed by Sir Willoughby at their full value, he could imagine the ultimate balance of good fortune to be in favor of Vernon. But to do so, he had to reduce the whole calculation to the extreme abstract, and feed his lean friend as it were on due and roots, and the happy effect for Vernon lay in a distant future on the borders of old age, where he was to be blessed with his lady's regretful preference and rejoice in the fruits of good constitutional habits. The reviewing mind was Irish. Sir Willoughby was a character of man profoundly opposed to Dr. Corney's nature. The latter's instincts bristled with antagonism, not to his race, for Vernon was of the same race, partly of the same blood, and Corney loved him. The type of person was the annoyance, and the circumstance of its prevailing successfulness in the country where he was placed, while it held him silent as if under a law, heaped stores of insurgency in the Celtic bosom. Corney contemplating Sir Willoughby, and a trotting current governed by strong blow, have a point of likeness between them, with the point of difference that Corney was enlightened to know of a friend better adapted for eminent station, and especially better adapted to please a lovely lady. Could these high-bred English women be taught to conceive another idea of manliness than the formal carved-in-wood idol of their national worship? Dr. Corney breakfasted very early, without seeing Vernon. He was off to a patient while the first lark of the morning caroled above, and the business of the day not yet fallen upon men in the shape of cloud, was happily intermixed with nature's hues and pipings. Turning off the high-road tip a green lane an hour later, he beheld a youngster prying into a hedge head and arms. By the peculiar strenuous twist of those hinders parts, indicative of a frame plunged on the pursuit in hand, he clearly distinguished young cross-jay. Out came eggs, the doctor pulled up. What bird, he bellowed. Yellow hammer cross-jay yelled back. Now, sir, you'll drop a couple of those eggs in the nest. Don't order me, cross-jay was retorting. Oh, it's you, Dr. Corney. Good morning. I said that because I always do drop a couple back. I promised Mr. Whitford I would, and Ms. Middleton too. Had breakfast? Not yet. Not hungry? I should be if I thought about it. Jump up. I think I'd rather not, Dr. Corney. And you'll just do what Dr. Corney tells you, and set your mind on rashes of curly fat bacon and sweetly smoking coffee, toast, hot cakes, marmalade, and damson jam. Wide go the fellow's nostrils and there's water at the dimples of his mouth. Up, my man! Cross-jay jumped up beside the doctor who remarked as he touched his horse. I don't want a man this morning, though I'll enlist you in my service if I do. You're fond of Ms. Middleton. Instead of answering cross-jay, heave the sigh of love. That bears a burden. And so am I, resued the doctor. You'll have to put up with a rival. It's worse than fond. I'm in love with her. How do you like that? I don't mind how many love her, said cross-jay. You're worthy of a gratuitous breakfast in the front parlor of the best hotel of the place they call Arcadia. And how about your bed last night? Pretty middling. Hard, was it, were the bones I have at a cushion? I don't care for bed. A couple of hours and that's enough for me. But you're fond of Ms. Middleton anyhow, and that's a virtue. To his great surprise, Dr. Corneby held two big round tears forced their way out of this tough youngster's eyes. And all the while the boy's face was proud. Cross-jay said when he could trust himself to disjoin his lips, I want to see Mr. Whitford. Have you got news for him? I have something to ask him. It's about what I ought to do. Then, my boy, you have the right name addressed in the wrong direction. For I found you turning your shoulders on Mr. Whitford. And he has been out of his bed hunting you all the unholy night you've made it for him. That's melancholy. What do you say to asking my advice? Cross-jay sighed, I can't speak to anybody but Mr. Whitford. And you're hot to speak to him? I want to. And I found you running away from him. You're a curiosity, Mr. Cross-jay pattern. Ha! So would anybody be who knew as much as I do, said Cross-jay with a sober sadness that caused the doctor to treat him seriously. The fact is, he said, Mr. Whitford is beating the country for you. My best plan will be to drive you to the hall. I'd rather not go to the hall, Cross-jay spoke resolutely. You won't see Ms. Middleton anywhere but at the hall. I don't want to see Ms. Middleton if I can't be a bit of use to her. No danger threatening the lady is there. Cross-jay treated the question as if it had not been put. Now tell me, said Dr. Corny, would there be a chance for me, supposing Ms. Middleton were disengaged? The answer was easy. I'm sure she wouldn't. And why, sir, are you so cocksure? There was no saying. But the doctor pressed for it, and at last Cross-jay gave his opinion that she would take Mr. Whitford. The doctor asked why, and Cross-jay said it was because Mr. Whitford was the best man in the world. To which, with a lusty amen to that, Dr. Corny remarked, I should have fancy Colonel Decray would have had the first chance. He's more of a lady's man. Cross-jay surprised him again by petulantly saying, don't. The boy added, I don't want to talk except about birds and things. What a jolly morning it is. I saw the sunrise, no rain today. You're right about being hungry, Dr. Corny. The kindly little man swung his whip, Cross-jay informed him of his disgrace at the hall, and of every incident connected with it, from the tramp to the baronet, saved Ms. Middleton's adventure in the night scene in the drawing room. A strong smell of something left out struck Dr. Corny, and he said, You will not let Ms. Middleton know of my affection. After all, it's only a little bit of love, but as Patrick said to Kathleen, when she owned to such a little bit, that's the best bit of all. And he was as right as I am about hungry. Cross-jay scorned it to talk of loving, he declared. I never tell Ms. Middleton what I feel, why there's Ms. Dale's cottage. It's nearer to your empty inside than my mansion, said the doctor, and we'll stop just to inquire whether a bed's to be had for you there tonight, and if not, I'll have you with me and bottle you and exhibit you for your a rare specimen. Breakfast you may count on for Mr. Dale. I spy a gentleman. It's Colonel Decray. Come after news of you, I wonder. Ms. Middleton sends him, of course she does. Cross-jay turned his full face to the doctor. I haven't seen her for such a long time, but he saw me last night, and he might have told her that if she's anxious. Good morning, Colonel. I've had a good walk and a capital drive, and I'm as hungry as the boat's crew of Captain Bly. He jumped down. The Colonel and the doctor saluted, smiling. I've rung the bell, said Decray. A maid came to the gate, and upon her steps appeared Ms. Dale, who flung herself across Jay, mingling kisses and reproaches. She scarcely raised her face to the Colonel more than to reply to his greeting, and excused the hungry boy for herring indoors to breakfast. I'll wait, said Decray. He had seen that she was paler than usual. So had Dr. Corny, and the doctor called to her concerning her father's health. She reported that he had not yet risen and took Cross-jay to herself. That's well, said the doctor, if the invalid sleeps long. The lady is not looking so well, though. But ladies vary. They show the mind on the countenance, for want of the punching we meet with to conceal it. They're like military flags for a funeral or a gala, one day furled and the next day streaming. Men are a ship's figureheads, about the same for a storm or a calm, and not too handsome thanks to the ocean. It's an age since we encountered last, Colonel, on board the Dublin boat. I recollect, and a night it was. I recollect that you set me on my legs, Doctor. Ah, and you'll please denotify that Corny's no quack at sea, by favor of the monks of the chartreuse, whose elixir has power to still the ways. And we hear that miracles are done with. Roll a physician and a monk together, Doctor. True. It'll be a miracle if they combine. Though the cure of the soul is often the entire and total cure of the body. And it's maliciously said that the body given over to our treatment is a signal to set the soul flying. By the way, Colonel, that boy has a trifle on his mind. I suppose he has been worrying a farmer or a gamekeeper. Try him. You'll find him tight. He's got Miss Middleton on the brain. There's a bit of a secret, and he's not so cheerful about it. We'll see, said the Colonel. Doctor Corny nodded. I have to visit my patient here presently. I'm too early for him, so I'll make a call or two on the lame birds that are up, he remarked, and drove away. The craze strolled through the garden. He was a gentleman of those actively perceptive wits, which, if ever they reflect, do so by hops and jumps, upon some dancing mirror within we may fancy. He penetrated a plot in a flash, and in a flash he formed one. But in both cases it was after long hovering and not over eager deliberation by the patient exercise of his quick perceptives. The fact that Cross J was considered to have Miss Middleton on the brain threw a series of images of everything relating to Cross J for the last 40 hours into a relief before him. And as he did not in the slightest degree speculate on any one of them, but merely shifted and surveyed them, the falcon that he was in spirit, as well as in his handsome face, leisurely allowed his instinct to direct him where to strike. A reflective disposition has this danger in action, that it commonly precipitates conjecture for the purpose of working upon probabilities with the methods and in the tracks to which it is accustomed. And to conjecture Rachele is to play into the puzzles of the maze. He who can watch encircling above it a while, quietly viewing and collecting in his eye, gathers matter that makes the secret thing discourse to the brain by weight and balance. He will get either the right clue or none, more frequently none. But he will escape the entanglement of his own cleverness, he will always be nearer to the enigma than the guesser or the calculator, and he will retain a breadth of vision forfeited by them. He must, however, to have his chance of success, be acutely besides calmly perceptive, a reader of features audacious at the proper moment. Decray wished to look at Miss Dale. She had returned home very suddenly, not as it appeared, owing to her father's illness. And he remembered a redness of her eyelids when he passed her on the corridor one night. She sent Cross Jay out to him as soon as the boy was well filled. He sent Cross Jay back with a request. She did not yield to it immediately. She stepped to the front door reluctantly and seemed disconcerted. Decray begged for a message to Miss Middleton. There was none to give. He persisted. But there was really none at present, she said. You won't entrust me with the smallest word, said he, and set her visibly thinking whether she could dispatch a word. She could not. She had no heart for messages. I shall see her in a day or two, Colonel Decray. She will miss you severely. We shall soon meet, and poor Willoughby. Latisha colored and stood silent, a butterfly of some rarity allured Cross Jay. I fear he has been doing mischief, she said. I cannot get him to look at me. His appetite is good. Very good indeed. Decray nodded. A boy with a noble appetite is never a hopeless lock. The Colonel and Cross Jay lounged over the garden. And now said the Colonel, We'll see if we can't arrange a meeting between you and Miss Middleton. You're a lucky fellow, for she's always thinking of you. I know I'm always thinking of her, said Cross Jay. If ever you're in a scrape, she's the person you must go to. Yes, if I know where she is. Why, generally, she'll be at the hall. There was no reply. Cross Jay's dreadful secret jumped to his throat. He certainly was a weaker lock for being full of breakfast. I want to see Mr. Whitford so much, he said. Something to tell him? I don't know what to do. I don't understand it. The secret wriggled to his mouth. He swallowed it down. Yes, I want to talk to Mr. Whitford. He's another of Miss Middleton's friends. I know he is. He's true steel. We're all her friends, Cross Jay. I flatter myself. I'm a Toledo when I'm wanted. How long have you been in the house last night before you ran into me? I don't know, sir. I fell asleep for some time and then I woke. Where did you find yourself? I was in the drawing room. Come, Cross Jay, you're not a fellow to be scared by ghosts. You looked at it when you made a dash at my mid-drift. I don't believe there are such things. Do you, Colonel? You can't. There's no saying. We'll hope not. For it wouldn't be fair fighting. A man with a ghost to back him had beat any ten. We couldn't box him or play cards or stand a chance with him as a rival in love. Did you now catch a sight of a ghost? They weren't ghosts. Cross Jay said what he was sure of, and his voice pronounced his conviction. I doubt whether Miss Middleton is particularly happy, remarked the Colonel. Why? Why? You upset her, you know, now and then. The boy swelled. I'd do. I'd go. I wouldn't have her unhappy. It's that. That's it. And I don't know what I ought to do. I wish I could see Mr. Whitford. You get into such headlong scrapes, my lad. I wasn't in a scrape yesterday. So you made yourself up a comfortable bed in the drawing room. Luckily Sir Willoughby didn't see you. He didn't, though. A close shave, was it? I was under covering of something silk. He woke you? I suppose he did. I heard him. Talking? He was talking. What? Talking to himself? No. No. The secret threat in Cross Jay to beat out or suffocate him. Decray gave him a respite. You like Sir Willoughby, don't you? Cross Jay produced a stillborn affirmative. He's kind to you, said the Colonel. He'll set you up and look after your interests. Yes, I like him, said Cross Jay, with his customary rapidity in touching the subject. I like him. He's kind in all that, and tips and plays with you in all that. But I never can make out why he wouldn't see my father when my father came here to see him ten miles, and had to walk back ten miles in the rain to go by rail a long way down home as far as Devonport, because Sir Willoughby wouldn't see him. Though he was at home, my father saw. We all thought it so odd, and my father wouldn't let us talk much about it. My father's a very brave man. Captain Patterness is brave a man as ever lives, said Decray. I'm positive you'd like him, Colonel. I know of his deeds, and I admire him, and that's a good step to liking. He warmed the boy's thoughts of his father, because what they say at home is a little bread and cheese, and a glass of ale, and a rest to a poor man. Lots of great houses will give you that, and we wouldn't have asked for more than that. My sisters say they think Sir Willoughby must be selfish. He's awfully proud, and perhaps it was because my father wasn't dressed well enough. But what can we do? We're very poor at home, and lots of us, and all hungry. My father says he isn't paid very well for his services to the government. He's only a marine. He's a hero, said Decray. He came home very tired, with a cold, and had a doctor. But Sir Willoughby did send him money, and mother wished to send it back. And my father said she was not like a woman, with our big family. He said he thought Sir Willoughby an extraordinary man. Not at all. Very common. Indigenous, said Decray. The art of cutting is one of the branches of a polite education in this country, and you'll have to learn it if you expect to be looked on as a gentleman, and a pattern, my boy. I begin to see how it is Miss Middleton takes to you so. Follow her directions. But I hope you did not listen to a private conversation. Miss Middleton would not approve of that. Colonel Decray, how could I help myself? I heard a lot before I knew what it was. There was poetry. Still, Crossche, if it was important, was it? The boy swelled again, and the Colonel asked him, Does Miss Dale know if you're having played listener? She, said Crossche. Oh, I couldn't tell her. He breathed thick, then came a thread of tears. She wouldn't do anything to hurt Miss Middleton. I'm sure of that. It wasn't her fault. She, there goes Mr. Wilford! Crossche bounded away. The Colonel had no inclination to wait for his return. He walked fast up the road, not perspicuously conscious, that his motive was to be well in advance of Vernon Whitford, to whom, after all, the knowledge imparted by Crossche would be of small advantage. That fellow would probably trot off to Willoughby to row him for breaking his word to Miss Middleton. There are men, thought Decray, who see nothing, feel nothing. He crossed a style into the wood above the lake, where, as he was in the humor to think himself signally lucky, aspiring her. He took it, as a matter of course, that the lady who taught his heart to leap should be posted by the fates. And he wandered little at her power, for rarely had the world seen such union of princess and self as in that lady's figure. She stood, holding by a beach branch, gazing down on the water. She had not heard him. When she looked, she flushed at the spectacle of one of her thousand thoughts, but she was not startled. The color overflowed a grave face. And is not quite the first time that Willoughby has played this trick, Decray said to her, keenly smiling with a parted mouth. Claire moved her lips to recall remarks introductory to so abrupt and strange a plunge. He smiled in that peculiar manner of an illuminated comic perception. For the moment he was all falcon. And he surprised himself more than Claire, who was not in the mood to take surprises. It was the sight of her which had animated him to strike his game. He was down on it. He was down on it. Another instinct at work they spring up in twenties, often or then in twos when the hardest the hunter prompted him to directness and quickness to carry her on the flood of the discovery. She regained something of her mental self-possession as soon as she was on a level with a meaning she had not yet inspected. But she had to submit to his lead distinctly perceiving where its drift divided to the forked currents of what might be in his mind and what was in hers. Miss Middleton, I bear a bit of a likeness to the messenger to the glorious despot. My head is off if I speak not true. Everything I have is on the die. Did I guess wrong your wish? I read it in the dark by the heart. But here's a certainty. Willoughby set you free. You have come from him? She could imagine nothing else, and she was unable to preserve a disguise. She trembled. From Miss Dale. Ah, Clara dripped. She told me that once. Tis the fact that tells it now. You have not seen him since you left the house? Darkly, clear enough, not unlike the hand of destiny through a veil. He offered himself to Miss Dale last night, about between the witching hours of twelve and one. Miss Dale. Would she other? Could she? The poor lady is languished beyond a decade. She's love in the feminine person. Are you speaking seriously, Colonel Decray? Would I dare to trifle with you, Miss Middleton? I have reason to know it cannot be. If I have a head, it is a fresh and blooming truth. And more, I stake my vanity on it. Let me go to her. She stepped. Consider, said he. Miss Dale and I are excellent friends. It would not seem indelicate to her. She has a kind of regard for me through cross-j. Oh, can it be? There must be some delusion. You have seen. You wish to be of service to me. You may too easily be deceived. Last night. He last night. And this morning. Tis not the first time our friend has played the trick, Miss Middleton. But this is incredible that last night and this morning in my father's presence, he presses. You have seen Miss Dale? Everything is possible of him. They were together, I know. Colonel Decray, I have not the slightest chance of concealment with you. I think I felt that when I first saw you. Will you let me hear why you are so certain? Miss Middleton, when I first had the honor of looking on you, it was in a posture that necessitated my looking up, and morally so it has been since. I conceived that Willoughby had won the greatest prize of earth. And next I was led to the conclusion that he had wanted to lose it. Whether he much cares is the mystery I haven't leisure to fathom. Himself is the principal consideration with himself and ever was. You discovered it, said Clara. He uncovered it, said Decray. The miracle was that the world wouldn't see. But the world is a piggy-wee-ee world for the wealthy fellow who fills a trough for it, and that he has always very sagaciously done. Only women besides myself have detected him. I have never exposed him. I have been an observer, pure and simple. And because I apprehended another catastrophe, making something like the fourth to my knowledge one being public, you knew Miss Durham and Harry Oxford too. And there appear as happy as black birds in a cherry tree in a summer sunrise with the owner of the garden asleep. Because of that apprehension of mine, I refused the office of best man till Willoughby had sent me a third letter. He insisted on my coming. I came, saw, and was conquered. I trust with all my soul I did not betray myself. I owed that duty to my position of concealing it. As for entirely hiding that I had used my eyes, I can't say. They must answer for it. The carl was using his eyes with an increasing suavity that threatened more than sweetness. I believe you have been sincerely kind, said Clara. We will descend to the path round the lake. She did not refuse her hand on the descent, and he let it escape the moment the service was done. As he was performing the admiral character of the man of honour, he had to attend to the observance of details. And sure of her though he was beginning to feel there was a touch of the unknown in Clara Middleton which made him fear to stamp assurance, despite a barely resistable impulse coming of his emotions and approved by his maxims. He looked at the hand, now a free lady's hand. Willoughby settled. His chance was great. Who else was in the way? No one. He counseled himself to wait for her. She might have ideas of delicacy. Her face was troubled speculative. The brows clouded. The lips compressed. You have not heard this from Miss Dale? She said. Last night they were together. This morning she fled. I saw her this morning distressed. She is unwilling to send you a message. She talks vaguely of meeting you some days hence. And it is not the first time he has gone to her for his consolation. That is not a proposal, Clara reflected. He is too prudent. He did not propose to her at the time you mentioned. Have you not been hasty, Colonel Decay? Shadows crossed her forehead. She glanced in the direction of the house and stopped her walk. Last night Miss Middleton there was a listener. Who? Cross J was under that pretty silk coverlet worked by the Miss Patterns. He came home late, found his door locked, and dashed downstairs into the drawing room where he snuggled up and dropped asleep. The two speakers woke him. They frightened the poor dear lad in his love for you. And after they had gone he wanted to run out of the house. And I met him just after I had come back from my search bursting and took him to my room and laid him on the sofa and abused him for not lying quiet. He was restless as a fish on a bank. When I woke in the morning he was off. Dr. Corny came across him somewhere on the road and drove him to the cottage. I was ringing the bell. Corny told me the boy had you on his brain and was miserable, so Cross J and I had a talk. Cross J did not repeat to you the conversation he had heard, said Clara. No. She smiled rejoicingly, proud of the boy as she walked on. But you'll pardon me, Miss Middleton, and I'm for him as much as you are if I was guilty of a little angling. My sympathies are with the fish. The poor fellow had a secret that hurt him. It rose to the surface crying to be hooked, and I spared him twice or thrice, because he had a sort of holy sentiment I respected that none but Mr. Whitford ought to be his father-confessor. Cross J. She cried, hugging her love of the boy. The secret was one not to be communicated to Miss Dale of all people. He said that? As good as the very words. She informed me too that she couldn't induce him to face her straight. Oh, that looks like it. And Cross J was unhappy, very unhappy? He was just where tears are on the brim and would have been over. If he were not such a manly youngster. It looks, she reverted and thought to Willoughby and doubted, and blindly stretched hands to her recollection of the strange old monster she had discovered in him. Such a man could do anything. That conclusion fortified her to pursue her walk to the house and give battle for freedom. Willoughby appeared to her scarce human, unreadable, saved by the key that she could supply. She determined to put faith in Colonel Decray's marvelous divination of circumstances in the dark. Marvels are solid weapons when we are attacked by real prodigies of nature. Her countenance cleared. She conversed with Decray of the polite and the political world, throwing off her personal burden completely and charming him. At the edge of the garden on the bridge that crossed the ha-ha from the park, he had a second impulse, almost a warning within, to seize his heavenly opportunity to ask for thanks and move her tender, lowered eyelids to hint at his reward. He repressed it, doubtful of the wisdom. Something like, heaven forgive me was in Claire's mind, though she would have declared herself innocent before the scrutator. End of Chapter 42, Recording by Linda Woods, Maitland, Florida