George Meredith
Rhoda Fleming. Complete
Robert fell back on the pillow. Mrs. Boulby wiped her eyes. Her feelings were overwhelmed with mournful devotion to the passionate young man; and she expressed them practically: “A rump-steak would never digest in his poor stomach!”
He seemed to be of that opinion too, for when, after lying till eleven, he rose and appeared at the breakfast-table, he ate nothing but crumbs of dry bread. It was curious to see his precise attention to the neatness of his hat and coat, and the nervous eye he cast upon the clock, while brushing and accurately fixing these garments. The hat would not sit as he was accustomed to have it, owing to the bruise on his head, and he stood like a woman petulant with her milliner before the glass; now pressing the hat down till the pain was insufferable, and again trying whether it presented him acceptably in the enforced style of his wearing it. He persisted in this, till Mrs. Boulby’s exclamation of wonder admonished him of the ideas received by other eyes than his own. When we appear most incongruous, we are often exposing the key to our characters; and how much his vanity, wounded by Rhoda, had to do with his proceedings down at Warbeach, it were unfair to measure just yet, lest his finer qualities be cast into shade, but to what degree it affected him will be seen.
Mrs. Boulby’s persuasions induced him to take a stout silver-topped walking-stick of her husband’s, a relic shaped from the wood of the Royal George; leaning upon which rather more like a Naval pensioner than he would have cared to know, he went forth to his appointment with the lady.
CHAPTER XX
The park-sward of Fairly, white with snow, rolled down in long sweeps to the salt water: and under the last sloping oak of the park there was a gorse-bushed lane, green in Summer, but now bearing cumbrous blossom—like burdens of the crisp snow-fall. Mrs. Lovell sat on horseback here, and alone, with her gauntleted hand at her waist, charmingly habited in tone with the landscape. She expected a cavalier, and did not perceive the approach of a pedestrian, but bowed quietly when Robert lifted his hat.
“They say you are mad. You see, I trust myself to you.”
“I wish I could thank you for your kindness, madam.”
“Are you ill?”
“I had a fall last night, madam.”
The lady patted her horse’s neck.
“I haven’t time to inquire about it. You understand that I cannot give you more than a minute.”
She glanced at her watch.
“Let us say five exactly. To begin: I can’t affect to be ignorant of the business which brings you down here. I won’t pretend to lecture you about the course you have taken; but, let me distinctly assure you, that the gentleman you have chosen to attack in this extraordinary manner, has done no wrong to you or to any one. It is, therefore, disgracefully unjust to single him out. You know he cannot possibly fight you. I speak plainly.”
“Yes, madam,” said Robert. “I’ll answer plainly. He can’t fight a man like me. I know it. I bear him no ill-will. I believe he’s innocent enough in this matter, as far as acts go.”
“That makes your behaviour to him worse!”
Robert looked up into her eyes.
“You are a lady. You won’t be shocked at what I tell you.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Lovell, hastily: “I have learnt—I am aware of the tale. Some one has been injured or, you think so. I don’t accuse you of madness, but, good heavens! what means have you been pursuing! Indeed, sir, let your feelings be as deeply engaged as possible, you have gone altogether the wrong way to work.”
“Not if I have got your help by it, madam.”
“Gallantly spoken.”
She smiled with a simple grace. The next moment she consulted her watch.
“Time has gone faster than I anticipated. I must leave you. Let this be our stipulation:”
She lowered her voice.
“You shall have the address you require. I will undertake to see her myself, when next I am in London. It will be soon. In return, sir, favour me with your word of honour not to molest this gentleman any further. Will you do that? You may trust me.”
“I do, madam, with all my soul!” said Robert.
“That’s sufficient. I ask no more. Good morning.”
Her parting bow remained with him like a vision. Her voice was like the tinkling of harp-strings about his ears. The colour of her riding-habit this day, harmonious with the snow-faced earth, as well as the gentle mission she had taken upon herself, strengthened his vivid fancy in blessing her as something quite divine.
He thought for the first time in his life bitterly of the great fortune which fell to gentlemen in meeting and holding equal converse with so adorable a creature; and he thought of Rhoda as being harshly earthly; repulsive in her coldness as that black belt of water contrasted against the snow on the shores.
He walked some paces in the track of Mrs. Lovell’s horse, till his doing so seemed too presumptuous, though to turn the other way and retrace his steps was downright hateful: and he stood apparently in profound contemplation of a ship of war and the trees of the forest behind the masts. Either the fatigue of standing, or emotion, caused his head to throb, so that he heard nothing, not even men’s laughter; but looking up suddenly, he beheld, as in a picture, Mrs. Lovell with some gentlemen walking their horses toward him. The lady gazed softly over his head, letting her eyes drop a quiet recognition in passing; one or two of the younger gentlemen stared mockingly.
Edward Blancove was by Mrs. Lovell’s side. His eyes fixed upon Robert with steady scrutiny, and Robert gave him a similar inspection, though not knowing why. It was like a child’s open look, and he was feeling childish, as if his brain had ceased to act. One of the older gentlemen, with a military aspect, squared his shoulders, and touching an end of his moustache, said, half challengingly,—
“You are dismounted to-day?”
“I have only one horse,” Robert simply replied.
Algernon Blancove came last. He neither spoke nor looked at his enemy, but warily clutched his whip. All went by, riding into line some paces distant; and again they laughed as they bent forward to the lady, shouting.
“Odd, to have out the horses on a day like this,” Robert thought, and resumed his musing as before. The lady’s track now led him homeward, for he had no will of his own. Rounding the lane, he was surprised to see Mrs. Boulby by the hedge. She bobbed like a beggar woman, with a rueful face.
“My dear,” she said, in apology for her presence, “I shouldn’t ha’ interfered, if there was fair play. I’m Englishwoman enough for that. I’d have stood by, as if you was a stranger. Gentlemen always give fair play before a woman. That’s why I come, lest this appointment should ha’ proved a pitfall to you. Now you’ll come home, won’t you; and forgive me?”
“I’ll come to the old Pilot now, mother,” said Robert, pressing her hand.
“That’s right; and ain’t angry with me for following of you?”
“Follow your own game, mother.”
“I did, Robert; and nice and vexed I am, if I’m correct in what I heard say, as that lady and her folk passed, never heeding an old woman’s ears. They made a bet of you, dear, they did.”
“I hope the lady won,” said Robert, scarce hearing.
“And it was she who won, dear. She was to get you to meet her, and give up, and be beaten like, as far as I could understand their chatter; gentlefolks laugh so when they talk; and they can afford to laugh, for they has the best of it. But I’m vexed; just as if I’d felt big and had burst. I want you to be peaceful, of course I do; but I don’t like my boy made a bet of.”
“Oh, tush, mother,” said Robert impatiently.
“I heard ‘em, my dear; and complimenting the lady they was, as they passed me. If it vexes you my thinking it, I won’t, dear; I reelly won’t. I see it lowers you, for there you are at your hat again. It is lowering, to be made a bet of. I’ve that spirit, that if you was well and sound, I’d rather have you fighting ‘em. She’s a pleasant enough lady to look at, not a doubt; small-boned, and slim, and fair.”
Robert asked which way they had gone.
“Back to the stables, my dear; I heard ‘em say so, because one gentleman said that the spectacle was over, and the lady had gained the day; and the snow was balling in the horses’ feet; and go they’d better, before my lord saw them out. And another said, you were a wild man she’d tamed; and they said, you ought to wear a collar, with Mrs. Lovell’s, her name, graved on it. But don’t you be vexed; you may guess they’re not my Robert’s friends. And, I do assure you, Robert, your hat’s neat, if you’d only let it be comfortable: such fidgeting worries the brim. You’re best in appearance—and I always said it—when stripped for boxing. Hats are gentlemen’s things, and becomes them like as if a title to their heads; though you’d bear being Sir Robert, that you would; and for that matter, your hat is agreeable to behold, and not like the run of our Sunday hats; only you don’t seem easy in it. Oh, oh! my tongue’s a yard too long. It’s the poor head aching, and me to forget it. It’s because you never will act invalidy; and I remember how handsome you were one day in the field behind our house, when you boxed a wager with Simon Billet, the waterman; and you was made a bet of then, for my husband betted on you; and that’s what made me think of comparisons of you out of your hat and you in it.”
Thus did Mrs. Boulby chatter along the way. There was an eminence a little out of the road, overlooking the Fairly stables. Robert left her and went to this point, from whence he beheld the horsemen with the grooms at the horses’ heads.
“Thank God, I’ve only been a fool for five minutes!” he summed up his sensations at the sight. He shut his eyes, praying with all his might never to meet Mrs. Lovell more. It was impossible for him to combat the suggestion that she had befooled him; yet his chivalrous faith in women led him to believe, that as she knew Dahlia’s history, she would certainly do her best for the poor girl, and keep her word to him. The throbbing of his head stopped all further thought. It had become violent. He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of a light dreamer to catch the sequence of a dream, when blackness follows close up, devouring all that is said and done. In despair, he thought with kindness of Mrs. Boulby’s brandy.
“Mother,” he said, rejoining her, “I’ve got a notion brandy can’t hurt a man when he’s in bed. I’ll go to bed, and you shall brew me some; and you’ll let no one come nigh me; and if I talk light-headed, it’s blank paper and scribble, mind that.”
The widow promised devoutly to obey all his directions; but he had begun to talk light-headed before he was undressed. He called on the name of a Major Waring, of whom Mrs. Boulby had heard him speak tenderly as a gentleman not ashamed to be his friend; first reproaching him for not being by, and then by the name of Percy, calling to him endearingly, and reproaching himself for not having written to him.
“Two to one, and in the dark!” he kept moaning “and I one to twenty, Percy, all in broad day. Was it fair, I ask?”
Robert’s outcries became anything but “blank paper and scribble” to the widow, when he mentioned Nic Sedgett’s name, and said: “Look over his right temple he’s got my mark a second time.”
Hanging by his bedside, Mrs. Boulby strung together, bit by bit, the history of that base midnight attack, which had sent her glorious boy bleeding to her. Nic Sedgett; she could understand, was the accomplice of one of the Fairly gentlemen; but of which one, she could not discover, and consequently set him down as Mr. Algernon Blancove.
By diligent inquiry, she heard that Algernon had been seen in company with the infamous Nic, and likewise that the countenance of Nicodemus was reduced to accept the consolation of a poultice, which was confirmation sufficient. By nightfall Robert was in the doctor’s hands, unconscious of Mrs. Boulby’s breach of agreement. His father and his aunt were informed of his condition, and prepared, both of them, to bow their heads to the close of an ungodly career. It was known over Warbeach, that Robert lay in danger, and believed that he was dying.
CHAPTER XXI
Mrs. Boulby’s ears had not deceived her; it had been a bet: and the day would have gone disastrously with Robert, if Mrs. Lovell had not won her bet. What was heroism to Warbeach, appeared very outrageous blackguardism up at Fairly. It was there believed by the gentlemen, though rather against evidence, that the man was a sturdy ruffian, and an infuriated sot. The first suggestion was to drag him before the magistrates; but against this Algernon protested, declaring his readiness to defend himself, with so vehement a magnanimity, that it was clearly seen the man had a claim on him. Lord Elling, however, when he was told of these systematic assaults upon one of his guests, announced his resolve to bring the law into operation. Algernon heard it as the knell to his visit.
He was too happy, to go away willingly; and the great Jew City of London was exceedingly hot for him at that period; but to stay and risk an exposure of his extinct military career, was not possible. In his despair, he took Mrs. Lovell entirely into his confidence; in doing which, he only filled up the outlines of what she already knew concerning Edward. He was too useful to the lady for her to afford to let him go. No other youth called her “angel” for listening complacently to strange stories of men and their dilemmas; no one fetched and carried for her like Algernon; and she was a woman who cherished dog-like adoration, and could not part with it. She had also the will to reward it.
At her intercession, Robert was spared an introduction to the magistrates. She made light of his misdemeanours, assuring everybody that so splendid a horseman deserved to be dealt with differently from other offenders. The gentlemen who waited upon Farmer Eccles went in obedience to her orders.
Then came the scene on Ditley Marsh, described to that assembly at the Pilot, by Stephen Bilton, when she perceived that Robert was manageable in silken trammels, and made a bet that she would show him tamed. She won her bet, and saved the gentlemen from soiling their hands, for which they had conceived a pressing necessity, and they thanked her, and paid their money over to Algernon, whom she constituted her treasurer. She was called “the man-tamer,” gracefully acknowledging the compliment. Colonel Barclay, the moustachioed horseman, who had spoken the few words to Robert in passing, now remarked that there was an end of the military profession.
“I surrender my sword,” he said gallantly.
Another declared that ladies would now act in lieu of causing an appeal to arms.
“Similia similibus, &c.,” said Edward. “They can, apparently, cure what they originate.”
“Ah, the poor sex!” Mrs. Lovell sighed. “When we bring the millennium to you, I believe you will still have a word against Eve.”
The whole parade back to the stables was marked by pretty speeches.
“By Jove! but he ought to have gone down on his knees, like a horse when you’ve tamed him,” said Lord Suckling, the young guardsman.
“I would mark a distinction between a horse and a brave man, Lord Suckling,” said the lady; and such was Mrs. Lovell’s dignity when an allusion to Robert was forced on her, and her wit and ease were so admirable, that none of those who rode with her thought of sitting in judgement on her conduct. Women can make for themselves new spheres, new laws, if they will assume their right to be eccentric as an unquestionable thing, and always reserve a season for showing forth like the conventional women of society.
The evening was Mrs. Lovell’s time for this important re-establishment of her position; and many a silly youth who had sailed pleasantly with her all the day, was wrecked when he tried to carry on the topics where she reigned the lady of the drawing-room. Moreover, not being eccentric from vanity, but simply to accommodate what had once been her tastes, and were now her necessities, she avoided slang, and all the insignia of eccentricity.
Thus she mastered the secret of keeping the young men respectfully enthusiastic; so that their irrepressible praises did not (as is usual when these are in acclamation) drag her to their level; and the female world, with which she was perfectly feminine, and as silkenly insipid every evening of her life as was needed to restore her reputation, admitted that she belonged to it, which is everything to an adventurous spirit of that sex: indeed, the sole secure basis of operations.
You are aware that men’s faith in a woman whom her sisters discountenance, and partially repudiate, is uneasy, however deeply they may be charmed. On the other hand, she maybe guilty of prodigious oddities without much disturbing their reverence, while she is in the feminine circle.
But what fatal breath was it coming from Mrs. Lovell that was always inflaming men to mutual animosity? What encouragement had she given to Algernon, that Lord Suckling should be jealous of him? And what to Lord Suckling, that Algernon should loathe the sight of the young lord? And why was each desirous of showing his manhood in combat before an eminent peacemaker?
Edward laughed—“Ah-ha!” and rubbed his hands as at a special confirmation of his prophecy, when Algernon came into his room and said, “I shall fight that fellow Suckling. Hang me if I can stand his impudence! I want to have a shot at a man of my own set, just to let Peggy Lovell see! I know what she thinks.”
“Just to let Mrs. Lovell see!” Edward echoed. “She has seen it lots of times, my dear Algy. Come; this looks lively. I was sure she would soon be sick of the water-gruel of peace.”
“I tell you she’s got nothing to do with it, Ned. Don’t be confoundedly unjust. She didn’t tell me to go and seek him. How can she help his whispering to her? And then she looks over at me, and I swear I’m not going to be defended by a woman. She must fancy I haven’t got the pluck of a flea. I know what her idea of young fellows is. Why, she said to me, when Suckling went off from her, the other day, ‘These are our Guards.’ I shall fight him.”
“Do,” said Edward.
“Will you take a challenge?”
“I’m a lawyer, Mr. Mars.”
“You won’t take a challenge for a friend, when he’s insulted?”
“I reply again, I am a lawyer. But this is what I’ll do, if you like. I’ll go to Mrs. Lovely and inform her that it is your desire to gain her esteem by fighting with pistols. That will accomplish the purpose you seek. It will possibly disappoint her, for she will have to stop the affair; but women are born to be disappointed—they want so much.”
“I’ll fight him some way or other,” said Algernon, glowering; and then his face became bright: “I say, didn’t she manage that business beautifully this morning? Not another woman in the world could have done it.”
“Oh, Una and the Lion! Mrs. Valentine and Orson! Did you bet with the rest?” his cousin asked.
“I lost my tenner; but what’s that!”
“There will be an additional five to hand over to the man Sedgett. What’s that!”
“No, hang it!” Algernon shouted.
“You’ve paid your ten for the shadow cheerfully. Pay your five for the substance.”
“Do you mean to say that Sedgett—” Algernon stared.
“Miracles, if you come to examine them, Algy, have generally had a pathway prepared for them; and the miracle of the power of female persuasion exhibited this morning was not quite independent of the preliminary agency of a scoundrel.”
“So that’s why you didn’t bet.” Algernon signified the opening of his intelligence with his eyelids, pronouncing “by jingos” and “by Joves,” to ease the sudden rush of ideas within him. “You might have let me into the secret, Ned. I’d lose any number of tens to Peggy Lovell, but a fellow don’t like to be in the dark.”
“Except, Algy, that when you carry light, you’re a general illuminator. Let the matter drop. Sedgett has saved you from annoyance. Take him his five pounds.”
“Annoyance be hanged, my good Ned!” Algernon was aroused to reply. “I don’t complain, and I’ve done my best to stand in front of you; and as you’ve settled the fellow, I say nothing; but, between us two, who’s the guilty party, and who’s the victim?”
“Didn’t he tell you he had you in his power?”
“I don’t remember that he did.”
“Well, I heard him. The sturdy cur refused to be bribed, so there was only one way of quieting him; and you see what a thrashing does for that sort of beast. I, Algy, never abandon a friend; mark that. Take the five pounds to Sedgett.”
Algernon strode about the room. “First of all, you stick me up in a theatre, so that I’m seen with a girl; and then you get behind me, and let me be pelted,” he began grumbling. “And ask a fellow for money, who hasn’t a farthing! I shan’t literally have a farthing till that horse ‘Templemore’ runs; and then, by George! I’ll pay my debts. Jews are awful things!”
“How much do you require at present?” said Edward, provoking his appetite for a loan.
“Oh, fifty—that is, just now. More like a thousand when I get to town. And where it’s to come from! but never mind. ‘Pon my soul, I pity the fox I run down here. I feel I’m exactly in his case in London. However, if I can do you any service, Ned—”
Edward laughed. “You might have done me the service of not excusing yourself to the squire when he came here, in such a way as to implicate me.”
“But I was so tremendously badgered, Ned.”
“You had a sort of gratification in letting the squire crow over his brother. And he did crow for a time.”
“On my honour, Ned, as to crowing! he went away cursing at me. Peggy Lovell managed it somehow for you. I was really awfully badgered.”
“Yes; but you know what a man my father is. He hasn’t the squire’s philosophy in those affairs.”
“‘Pon my soul, Mr. Ned, I never guessed it before; but I rather fancy you got clear with Sir Billy the banker by washing in my basin—eh, did you?”
Edward looked straight at his cousin, saying, “You deserved worse than that. You were treacherous. You proved you were not to be trusted; and yet, you see, I trust you. Call it my folly. Of course (and I don’t mind telling you) I used my wits to turn the point of the attack. I may be what they call unscrupulous when I’m surprised. I have to look to money as well as you; and if my father thought it went in a—what he considers—wrong direction, the source would be choked by paternal morality. You betrayed me. Listen.”
“I tell you, Ned, I merely said to my governor—”
“Listen to me. You betrayed me. I defended myself; that is, I’ve managed so that I may still be of service to you. It was a near shave; but you now see the value of having a character with one’s father. Just open my writing-desk there, and toss out the cheque-book. I confess I can’t see why you should have objected—but let that pass. How much do you want? Fifty? Say forty-five, and five I’ll give you to pay to Sedgett—making fifty. Eighty before, and fifty—one hundred and thirty. Write that you owe me that sum, on a piece of paper. I can’t see why you should wish to appear so uncommonly virtuous.”
Algernon scribbled the written acknowledgment, which he despised himself for giving, and the receiver for taking, but was always ready to give for the money, and said, as he put the cheque in his purse: “It was this infernal fellow completely upset me. If you were worried by a bull-dog, by Jove, Ned, you’d lose your coolness. He bothered my head off. Ask me now, and I’ll do anything on earth for you. My back’s broad. Sir Billy can’t think worse of me than he does. Do you want to break positively with that pretty rival to Peggy L.? I’ve got a scheme to relieve you, my poor old Ned, and make everybody happy. I’ll lay the foundations of a fresh and brilliant reputation for myself.”
Algernon took a chair. Edward was fathoms deep in his book.
The former continued: “I’d touch on the money-question last, with any other fellow than you; but you always know that money’s the hinge, and nothing else lifts a man out of a scrape. It costs a stiff pull on your banker, and that reminds me, you couldn’t go to Sir Billy for it; you’d have to draw in advance, by degrees anyhow, look here:—There are lots of young farmers who want to emigrate and want wives and money. I know one. It’s no use going into particulars, but it’s worth thinking over. Life is made up of mutual help, Ned. You can help another fellow better than yourself. As for me, when I’m in a hobble, I give you my word of honour, I’m just like a baby, and haven’t an idea at my own disposal. The same with others. You can’t manage without somebody’s assistance. What do you say, old boy?”
Edward raised his head from his book. “Some views of life deduced from your private experience?” he observed; and Algernon cursed at book-worms, who would never take hints, and left him.
But when he was by himself, Edward pitched his book upon the floor and sat reflecting. The sweat started on his forehead. He was compelled to look into his black volume and study it. His desire was to act humanely and generously; but the question inevitably recurred: “How can I utterly dash my prospects in the world?” It would be impossible to bring Dahlia to great houses; and he liked great houses and the charm of mixing among delicately-bred women. On the other hand, lawyers have married beneath them—married cooks, housemaids, governesses, and so forth. And what has a lawyer to do with a dainty lady, who will constantly distract him with finicking civilities and speculations in unprofitable regions? What he does want is a woman amiable as a surface of parchment, serviceable as his inkstand; one who will be like the wig in which he closes his forensic term, disreputable from overwear, but suited to the purpose.
“Ah! if I meant to be nothing but a lawyer!” Edward stopped the flow of this current in Dahlia’s favour. His passion for her was silent. Was it dead? It was certainly silent. Since Robert had come down to play his wild game of persecution at Fairly, the simple idea of Dahlia had been Edward’s fever. He detested brute force, with a finely-witted man’s full loathing; and Dahlia’s obnoxious champion had grown to be associated in his mind with Dahlia. He swept them both from his recollection abhorrently, for in his recollection he could not divorce them. He pretended to suppose that Dahlia, whose only reproach to him was her suffering, participated in the scheme to worry him. He could even forget her beauty—forget all, save the unholy fetters binding him. She seemed to imprison him in bare walls. He meditated on her character. She had no strength. She was timid, comfort-loving, fond of luxury, credulous, preposterously conventional; that is, desirous more than the ordinary run of women of being hedged about and guarded by ceremonies—“mere ceremonies,” said Edward, forgetting the notion he entertained of women not so protected. But it may be, that in playing the part of fool and coward, we cease to be mindful of the absolute necessity for sheltering the weak from that monstrous allied army, the cowards and the fools. He admitted even to himself that he had deceived her, at the same time denouncing her unheard-of capacity of belief, which had placed him in a miserable hobble, and that was the truth.
Now, men confessing themselves in a miserable hobble, and knowing they are guilty of the state of things lamented by them, intend to drown that part of their nature which disturbs them by its outcry. The submission to a tangle that could be cut through instantaneously by any exertion of a noble will, convicts them. They had better not confide, even to their secret hearts, that they are afflicted by their conscience and the generosity of their sentiments, for it will be only to say that these high qualities are on the failing side. Their inclination, under the circumstances, is generally base, and no less a counsellor than uncorrupted common sense, when they are in such a hobble, will sometimes advise them to be base. But, in admitting the plea which common sense puts forward on their behalf, we may fairly ask them to be masculine in their baseness. Or, in other words, since they must be selfish, let them be so without the poltroonery of selfishness. Edward’s wish was to be perfectly just, as far as he could be now—just to himself as well; for how was he to prove of worth and aid to any one depending on him, if he stood crippled? Just, also, to his family; to his possible posterity; and just to Dahlia. His task was to reconcile the variety of justness due upon all sides. The struggle, we will assume, was severe, for he thought so; he thought of going to Dahlia and speaking the word of separation; of going to her family and stating his offence, without personal exculpation; thus masculine in baseness, he was in idea; but poltroonery triumphed, the picture of himself facing his sin and its victims dismayed him, and his struggle ended in his considering as to the fit employment of one thousand pounds in his possession, the remainder of a small legacy, hitherto much cherished.
A day later, Mrs. Lovell said to him: “Have you heard of that unfortunate young man? I am told that he lies in great danger from a blow on the back of his head. He looked ill when I saw him, and however mad he may be, I’m sorry harm should have come to one who is really brave. Gentle means are surely best. It is so with horses, it must be so with men. As to women, I don’t pretend to unriddle them.”
“Gentle means are decidedly best,” said Edward, perceiving that her little dog Algy had carried news to her, and that she was setting herself to fathom him. “You gave an eminent example of it yesterday. I was so sure of the result that I didn’t bet against you.”
“Why not have backed me?”
The hard young legal face withstood the attack of her soft blue eyes, out of which a thousand needles flew, seeking a weak point in the mask.
“The compliment was, to incite you to a superhuman effort.”
“Then why not pay the compliment?”
“I never pay compliments to transparent merit; I do not hold candles to lamps.”
