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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924064984697

THE WORKS OF
GEORGE MEREDITH

MEMORIAL EDITION

VOLUME

XIV

\.c

GEORGE MEREDITH

THE EGOIST

A COMEDY IN
NARRATIVE

VOL. II

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1910

(. IM; ,, , ! I

;Y-

A 90Z"53-B

Copyright, 1897,
BY GEORGE MEREDITH

.i.i.iKiiiii;)

Y 'I 1 8 U H V 1 Vi IJ
V

CONTENTS

CHAP. F&OB

XXV. THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHEK ... 1

XXVI. VERNON IN PURSUIT 19

XXVII. AT THE RAILWAY STATION .... 26

XXVIII. THE RETURN 36

XXrX. IN WHICH THE SENSITIVENESS OF SIR WIL-
LOUGHBY IS EXPLAINED : AND HE RECEIVES

MUCH INSTRUCTION 45

XXX. TREATING OF THE DINNER-PARTY AT MRS.

MOUNTSTUART JENKINSON's .... 68
XXXI. SIR WILLOUGHBY ATTEMPTS AND ACHIEVES

PATHOS 79

XXXII. LfiTITIA DALE DISCOVERS A SPIRITUAL CHANGE

AND DR. MIDDLETON A PHYSICAL ... 92

XXXIII. IN WHICH THE COMIC MUSE HAS AN EYE ON

TWO GOOD SOULS 103

XXXIV. MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND SIR WILLOUGHBY . 112
XXXV. MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART . 128

XXXVI. ANIMATED CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE 147
XXXVII. CONTAINS CLEVER FENCING AND INTIMATIONS

OF THE NEED FOR IT 160

vi THE EGOIST

CHAP. PAGE

XXXVIII. IN WHICH WE TAKE A STEP TO THE CENTEE OF

EGOISM 172

XXXrX. IN THE HEART OF THE EGOIST . . . 178

XL. MIDNIGHT : SIR WILLOUGHBY AND LjETITIA:

WITH TOUNG CROSSJAY UNDER A COVERLET 187
XLI. THE REV. DR. MIDDLETON, CLARA, AND SIR

WILLOUGHBY 200

XLII. SHOWS THE DIVINING ARTS OF A PERCEPTIVE

MIND 218

XLIII. IN WHICH SIR WILLOUGHBY IS LED TO THINK
THAT THE ELEMENTS HAVE CONSPIRED

AGAINST HIM 236

XLIV. DR. MIDDLETON : THE LADIES ELEANOR AND

ISABEL : AND MR. DALE .... 254

XLV. THE PATTEENE LADIES : MR. DALE : LADY
BUSSHE AND LADY CULMER : WITH MRS.
MOUNTSTUART JENKINSON .... 266
XLVI. THE SCENE OF SIR WILLOUGHBY's GENERALSHIP 275
XLVII. SIR WILLOUGHBY AND HIS FRIEND HORACE DE

CRAYE 292

XLVIII. THE LOVERS . 305

XLIX. LiETITIA AND SIR WILLOUGHBY . . 317

L. UPON WHICH THE CURTAIN FALLS . . . 327

ILLUSTRATION

VIEW OVER THE GARDEN TO BOX HILL, FROM AN
UPPER WINDOW IN FLINT COTTAGE, IN WHICH
ROOM THE AUTHOR WROTE BEFORE THE BUILD-
ING OF THE CHALET .... Frontispiece

From a photograph by Frederick H. Evans taken in 1909.

THE EGOIST
Vol. II

CHAPTER XXV

THE PLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER

The morning of Lucy Darleton's letter of reply to her
friend Clara was fair before sunrise with luminous colours
that are an omen to the husbandman. Clara had no
weather-eye for the rich Eastern crimson, nor a quiet space
within her for the beauty. She looked on it as her gate of
promise, and it set her throbbing with a revived relief in
radiant things which she once dreamed of to surround her
life, but her accelerated pulses narrowed her thoughts upon
the machinery of her project. She herself was metal,
pointing aU to her one aim when in motion. Nothing
came amiss to it, everything was fuel; fibs, evasions,
the serene battalions of white lies parallel on the march
with dainty rogue falsehoods. She had delivered herself
of many yesterday in her engagements for to-day.
Pressure was put on her to engage herself, and she did
so liberally, throwing the burden of deceitfulness on the
extraordinary pressure. 'I want the early part of the
morning ; the rest of the day I shall be at liberty.' She
said it to Willoughby, Miss Dale, Colonel De Craye, and
only the third time was she aware of the delicious double
meaning. Hence she associated it with the Colonel.

Your loudest outcry against the wretch who breaks your
rules, is in asking how a tolerably conscientious person
could have done this and the other besides the main offence,
which you vow you could overlook but for the minor
objections pertaining to conscience, the incomprehensible
and abominable lies, for example, or the brazen cool-
ness of the lying. Yet you know that we live in an

2 THE EGOIST

undisciplined world, where in our seasons of activity we
are servants of our design, and that this comes of our
passions, and those of our position. Our design shapes us
for the work in hand, the passions man the ship, the posi-
tion is their apology : and now should conscience be a
passenger on board, a merely seeming swiftness of our
vessel win keep him dumb as the unwilling guest of a
pirate captain scudding from the cruiser half in cloven
brine through rocks and shoals to save his black flag.
Beware the false position.

That is easy to say : sometimes the tangle descends on
us like a net of blight on a rose-bush. There is then an
instant choice for us between courage to cut loose, and
desperation if we do not. But not many men are trained
to courage ; young women are trained to cowardice. For
them to front an evil with plain speech is to be guilty of
effrontery and forfeit the waxen polish of purity, and there-
with their commanding place in the market. They are
trained to please man's taste, for which purpose they soon
learn to live out of themselves, and look on themselves as he
looks, almost as little disturbed as he by the undiscovered.
Without courage, conscience is a sorry guest; and if all
goes well with the pirate captain, conscience will be made
to walk the plank for being of no service to either party.

Clara's fibs and evasions disturbed her not in the least
that morning. She had chosen desperation, and she
thought herself very brave because she was just brave
enough to fly from her abhorrence. She was light-
hearted, or more truly, drunken-hearted. Her quick
nature realized the out of prison as vividly and suddenly
as it had sunk suddenly and leadenly under the sense of
imprisonment. Vernon crossed her mind: that was a
friend! Yes, and there was a guide; but he would
disapprove, and even he thwarting her way to sacred
liberty must be thrust aside.

THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER 3

What would lie think? They might never meet, for
her to know. Or one day in the Alps they might meet, a
middle-aged couple, he famous, she regretful only to have
fallen below his lofty standard. 'For, Mr. Whitford,' says
she, very earnestly, 'I did wish at that time, believe me
or not, to merit your approbation.' The brows of the
phantom Vernon whom she conjured up were stern, as she
had seen them yesterday in the library.

She gave herself a chiding for thinking of him when her
mind should be intent on that which he was opposed to.

It was a livelier relaxation to think of young Crossjay's
shamefaced confession presently, that he had been a lag-
gard in bed while she swept the dews. She laughed at
him, and immediately Crossjay popped out on her from
behind a tree, causing her to clap hand to heart and stand
fast. A conspirator is not of the stuff to bear surprises.
He feared he had hurt her and was manly in his efforts to
soothe : he had been up 'hours,' he said, and had watched
her coming along the avenue, and did not mean to startle
her : it was the kind of fun he played with fellows, and if
he had hurt her, she might do anything to him she liked,
and she would see if he could not stand to be punished.
He was urgent with her to inflict corporal punishment on
him.

'I shall leave it to the boatswain to do that when
you 're in the navy,' said Clara.

'The boatswain daren't strike an officer! so now you
see what you know of the navy,' said Crossjay.

'But you could not have been out before me, you
naughty boy, for I fpund all the locks and bolts when I
went to the door.'

'But you didn't go to the back-door, and Sir WU-
loughby's private door : you came out by the hall-door ;
and I know what you want. Miss Middleton, you want not
to pay what you 've lost.'

4 THE EGOIST

'What have I lost, Crossjay?'

'Your wager.'

'What was that?'

'You know.'

'Speak.'

'A kiss.'

' Nothing of the sort. But, dear boy, I don't love you
less for not kissing you. All that is nonsense : you have
to think only of learning, and to be truthful. Never tell a
story: suffer anything rather than be dishonest.' She
was particularly impressive upon the silliness and wicked-
ness of falsehood, and added : 'Do you hear?'

'Yes : but you kissed me when I had been out in the
rain that day.'

'Because I promised.'

'And Miss Middleton, you betted a kiss yesterday.'

'I am sure, Crossjay — ^no, I will not say I am sure:
but can you say you are sure you were out first this morn-
ing ? Well, will you say you are sure that when you left
the house you did not see me in the avenue ? You can't :
ah!'

'Miss Middleton, I do really believe I was dressed
first.'

'Always be truthful, my dear boy, and then you may
feel that Clara Middleton will always love you.'

' But, Miss Middleton, when you 're married you won't
be Clara Middleton.'

'I certainly shall, Crossjay.'

'No, you won't, because I'm so fond of your
name!'

She considered and said : 'You have warned me, Cross-
jay, and I shall not marry. I shall wait,' she was going to
say, 'for you,' but turned the hesitation to a period. 'Is
the village where I posted my letter the day before
yesterday too far for you ? '

THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER 5

Crossjay howled in contempt. 'Next to Clara my
favourite 's Lucy,' he said.

' I thought Clara came next to Nelson,' said she ; ' and
a long way off too, if you 're not going to be a landlubber.'

'I 'm not going to be a landlubber, Miss Middleton, you
may be absolutely positive on your solemn word.'

' You 're getting to talk like one a little now and then,
Crossjay.'

'Then I won't talk at all.'

He stuck to his resolution for one whole minute.

Clara hoped that on this morning of a doubtful though
imperative venture she had done some good.

They walked fast to cover the distance to the village
post-office and back before the breakfast hour : and they
had plenty of time, arriving too early for the opening of
the door, so that Crossjay began to dance with an appetite,
and was despatched to besiege a bakery. Clara felt lonely
without him, apprehensively timid La the shuttered un-
moving village street. She was glad of his return. When
at last her letter was handed to her, on the testimony of
the postman that she was the lawful applicant, Crossjay
and she put on a sharp trot to be back at the HaU in good
time. She took a swallowing glance of the first page of
Lucy's writing :

"Telegraph, and I wUl meet you. I wiU supply you
with everything you can want for the two nights, if
you cannot stop longer.'

That was the gist of the letter. A second, less voracious,
glance at it along the road brought sweetness : — Lucy
wrote :

' Do I love you as I did ? my best friend, you must fall
into unhappiness to have the answer to that.'

Clara broke a silence.

'Yes, dear Crossjay, and if you like you shall have
another walk with me after breakfast. But remember.

6 THE EGOIST

you must not say where you have gone with me. I shall
give you twenty shillings to go and buy those birds' eggs
and the butterflies you want for your collection; and
mind, promise me, to-day is your last day of truancy.
Tell Mr. Whitford how ungrateful you know you have
been, that he may have some hope of you. You know
the way across the fields to the railway station?'

'You save a mile ; you drop on the road by Combline's
mill, and then there 's another five-minutes' cut, and the
rest 's road.'

'Then, Crossjay, immediately after breakfast run round
behind the pheasantry, and there I '11 find you. And if
any one comes to you before I come, say you are admiring
the plumage of the Himalaya — the beautiful Indian bird •
and if we 're found together, we run a race, and of course
you can catch me, but you mustn't until we 're out of
sight. Tell Mr. Vernon at night — ^tell Mr. Whitford at
night you had the money from me as part of my allowance
to you for pocket-money. I used to like to have pocket-
money, Crossjay. And you may tell him I gave you the
holiday, and I may write to him for his excuse, if he is not
too harsh to grant it. He can be very harsh.'

' You look right into his eyes next time, Miss Middleton.
I used to think him awful, till he made me look at him.
He says men ought to look straight at one another, just as
we do when he gives me my boxing-lesson, and then we
won't have quarrelling half so much. I can't recollect
everything he says.'

'You are not bound to, Crossjay.'

'No, but you like to hear.'

' Really, dear boy, I can't accuse myself of having told
you that.'

' No, but. Miss Middleton, you do. And he 's fond of
your singing and playing on the piano, and watches
you.'

THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER 7

'We shall be late if we don't mind,' said Clara, starting
to a pace close on a run.

They were in time for a circuit in the park to the wild
double cherry-blossom, no longer all white. Clara gazed
up from imder it, where she had imagined a fairer visible
heavenliness than any other sight of earth had ever given
her. That was when Vernon lay beneath. But she had
certainly looked above, not at him. The tree seemed
sorrowful in its withering flowers of the colour of trodden
snow.

Crossjay resumed the conversation.

'He says ladies don't like him much.'

'Who says that?'

'Mr. Whitford.'

'Were those his words?'

'I forget the words: but he said they woxildn't be
taught by him, like me ever since you came; and since
you came I 've liked him ten times more.'

'The more you Uke him the more I shall like you,
Crossjay.'

The boy raised a shout and scampered away to Sir
Willoughby, at the appearance of whom Clara felt herself
nipped and curling inward. Crossjay ran up to him with
every sign of pleasure. Yet he had not mentioned him
during the walk ; and Clara took it for a sign that the boy
understood the entire satisfaction Willoughby had in mere
shows of affection, and acted up to it. Hardly blaming
Crossjay, she was a critic of the scene, for the reason that
youthful creatures who have ceased to love a person,
hunger for evidence against him to confirm their hard
animus, which will seem to them sometimes, when he is
not immediately irritating them, brutish, because they
cannot analyze it and reduce it to the multitude of just
antagonisms whereof it came. It has passed by large
accumulation into a sombre and speechless load upon the

8 THE EGOIST

senses, and fresh evidence, the smallest item, is a champion
to speak for it. Being about to do wrong, she grasped at
this eagerly, and brooded on the little of vital and truthful
that there was in the man, and how he corrupted the boy.
Nevertheless she instinctively imitated Crossjay in an
almost sparkling salute to him.

'Good morning,. Willoughby; it was not a morning to
lose : have you been out long?'

He retained her hand. ' My dear Clara ! and you, have
you not over-fatigued yourself? Where have you been?'

' Round — everywhere ! And I am certainly not tired.'

'Only you and Crossjay? You should have loosened
the dogs.'

'Their barking would have annoyed the house.'

'Less than I am annoyed to think of you without
protection.'

He kissed her fingers : it was a loving speech.

'The household . . .' said Clara, but would not insist
to convict him of what he could not have perceived.

' If you outstrip me another morning, Clara, promise me
to take the dogs; will you?'

'Yes.'

'To-day I am altogether yours.'

'Are you?'

'From the first to the last hour of it ! — So you fall in
with Horace's humour pleasantly ? '

'He is very amusing.'

'As good as though one had hired him.'

' Here comes Colonel De Craye.'

'He must think we have hired him !'

She noticed the bitterness of Willoughby's tone. He
sang out a good morning to De Craye, and remarked that
he must go to the stables.

'Darleton? Darleton, Miss Middleton?' said the
colonel, rising from his bow to her: 'a daughter of

THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER ^

General Darleton? If so, I have had the honour to dance
with her. And have not you? — practised with her, I
mean ; or gone off in a triumph to dance it out as young
ladies do ? So you know what a delightful partner she is.'

'She is!' cried Clara, enthusiastic for her succouring
friend, whose letter was the treasure in her bosom.

'Oddly, the name did not strike me yesterday. Miss
Middleton. In the middle of the night it rang a little
silver bell in my ear, and I remembered the lady I was
half in love with, if only for her dancing. She is dark,
of your height, as light on her feet ; a sister in another
colour. Now that I know her to be your friend . . . !'

'Why, you may meet her, Colonel De Craye.'

' It '11 be to offer her a castaway. And one only meets a
charming girl to hear that she 's engaged ! 'Tis not a line
of a ballad, Miss Middleton, but out of the heart.'

'Lucy Darleton . . . You were leading me to talk
seriously to you. Colonel De Craye.'

'Will you one day? — and not think me a perpetual
tumbler! You have heard of melancholy clowns. You
would find the face not so laughable behind my paint.
When I was thirteen years younger I was loved, and my
dearest sank to the grave. Since then I have not been
quite at home in life ; probably because of finding no one
so charitable as she. 'Tis easy to win smiles and hands,
but not so easy to win a woman whose faith you would
trust as your own heart before the enemy. I was poor
then. She said: "The day after my twenty-first birth-
day" ; and that day I went for her, and I wondered they
did not refuse me at the door. I was shown upstairs, and
I saw her, and saw death. She wished to marry me, to
leave me her fortune !'

'Then never marry,' said Clara in an underbreath.

She glanced behind.

Sir Willoughby was close, walking on turf.

10 THE EGOIST

'I must be cunning to escape him after breakfast/ she
thought.

He had discarded his foolishness of the previous days,
and the thought in him could have repUed : ' I am a dolt if
I let you out of my sight.'

Vernon appeared, formal as usual of late. Clara begged
his excuse for withdrawing Crossjay from his morning
swim. He nodded.

De Craye called to Willoughby for a book of the trains.

'There 's a card in the smoking-room ; eleven, one, and
four are the hours, if you must go,' said Willoughby.

'You leave the Hall, Colonel De Craye?'

'In two or three days. Miss Middleton.'

She did not request him to stay: his announcement
produced no effect on her. Consequently, thought he —
well, what ? nothing : well, then, that she might not be
minded to stay herself. Otherwise she would have re-
gretted the loss of an amusing companion: that is the
modest way of putting it. There is a modest and a vain
for the same sentiment ; and both may be simultaneously
in the same breast ; and each one as honest as the other ;
so shy is man's vanity in the presence of here and there a
lady. She liked him : she did not care a pin for him — ^how
could she ? yet she liked him : O to be able to do her some
kindling bit of service ! These were his consecutive fancies,
resolving naturally to the exclamation, and built on the
conviction that she did not love Willoughby, and waited
for a spirited lift from circumstances. His call for a book
of the trains had 'been a sheer piece of impromptu, in the
mind as well as on the mouth. It sprang, unknown to
him, of conjectures he had indulged yesterday and the day
before. This morning she would have an answer to her
letter to her friend. Miss Lucy Darleton, the pretty dark
girl, whom De Craye was astonished not to have noticed
more when he danced with her. She, pretty as she was,

THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER 11

had come to his recollection through the name and rank
of her father, a famous general of cavalry, and tactician
in that arm. The colonel despised himself for not having
been devoted to Clara Middleton's friend.

The morning's letters were on the bronze plate in the
hall. Clara passed on her way to her room without in-
specting them. De Craye opened an envelope and went
upstairs to scribble a line. Sir WUloughby observed their
absence at the solemn reading to the domestic servants in
advance of breakfast. Three chairs were unoccupied.
Vernon had his own notions of a mechanical service — and
a precious profit he derived from them ! but the other two
seats returned the stare WOloughby cast at their backs
with an impudence that reminded him of his friend
Horace's calling for a book of the trains, when a minute
afterward he admitted he was going to stay at the Hall
another two days, or three. The man possessed by
jealousy is never in need of matter for it : he magnifies ;
grass is jungle, hillocks are mountains. Willoughby's
legs crossing and uncrossing audibly, and his tight-folded
arms and clearing of the throat, were faint indications of
his condition.

'Are you in fair health this morning, WUloughby?'
Dr. Middleton said to him after he had closed his volumes.

'The thing is not much questioned by those who know
me intimately,' he replied.

'Willoughby unwell!' and: 'He is health incarnate !'
exclaimed the ladies Eleanor and Isabel.

Laetitia grieved for him. Sunrays on a pest-stricken
city, she thought, were like the smile of his face. She
believed that he deeply loved Clara and had learnt more
of her alienation.

He went into the hall to look up the well for the pair of
malefactors; on fire with what he could not reveal to a
soul.

12 THE EGOIST

De Craye was in the housekeeper's room, talking to
young Crossjay and Mrs. Montague just come up to break-
fast. He had heard the boy chattering, and as the door
was ajar, he peeped in, and was invited to enter. Mrs.
Montague was very fond of hearing him talk ; he paid her
the famUiar respect which a lady of fallen fortunes, at a
certain period after the fall, enjoys as a befittingly sad
souvenir, and the respectfulness of the lord of the house
was more chilling.

She bewailed the boy's trying his constitution with long
walks before he had anything in him to walk on.

' And where did you go this morning, my lad ? ' said De
Craye.

'Ah, you know the ground, colonel,' said Crossjay. 'I
am hungry ! I shall eat three eggs and some bacon, and
buttered cakes, and jam, then begin again, on my second
cup of coffee.'

'It 's not braggadocio,' remarked Mrs. Montague. 'He
waits empty from five in the morning till nine, and then he
comes famished to my table, and eats too much.'

' Oh ! Mrs. Montague, that is what the country people
call roemancing. For, Colonel De Craye, I had a bun
at seven o'clock. Miss Middleton forced me to go and
buy it.'

'A stale bun, my boy?'

' Yesterday's : there wasn't much of a stopper to you in
it, like a new bun.'

•And where did you leave Miss Middleton when you
went to buy the bun? You should never leave a lady;
and the street of a country town is lonely at that early
hour. Crossjay, you surprise me.'

' She forced me to go, colonel. Indeed she did. What
do I care for a bun ! And she was quite safe. We could
hear the people stirring in the post-office, and I met our
postman going for his letter-bag. I didn't want to go :

THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER 13

bother the bun ! — ^but you can't disobey Miss Middleton.
I never want to, and wouldn't.'

'There we 're of the same mind,' said the colonel, and
Cross jay shouted, for the lady whom they exalted was at
the door.

'You will be too tired for a ride this morning,' De Craye
said to her, descending the stairs.

She swung a bonnet by the ribands : 'I don't think of
riding to-day.'

'Why did you not depute your mission to me?'

'I like to bear my own burdens, as far as I can.'

'Miss Darleton is well?'

'I presume so.'

'Will you try her recollection of me?'

'It will probably be quite as lively as yours was.'

'Shall you see her soon?'

'I hope so.'

Sir Willoughby met her at the foot of the stairs, but
refrained from giving her a hand that shook.

'We shall have the day together,' he said.

Clara bowed.

At the breakfast-table she faced a clock.

De Craye took out his watch. ' You are five and a half
minutes too slow by that clock, WUloughby.'

'The man omitted to come from Rendon to set it last
week, Horace. He wiU find the hour too late here for him
when he does come.'

One of the ladies compared the time of her watch with
De Craye's, and Clara looked at hers and gratefully noted
that she was four minutes in arrear.

She left the breakfast-room at a quarter to ten, after
kissing her father. Willoughby was behind her. He had
been soothed by thinking of his personal advantages over
De Craye, and he felt assured that if he could be solitary
with his eccentric bride and fold her in himself, he would,

14 THE EGOIST

cutting temper adrift, be the man he had been to her not so
many days back. Considering how few days back, his
temper was roused, but he controlled it.

They were slightly dissenting as De Craye stepped into
the hall.

'A present worth examining,' Willoughby said to her:
'And I do not dwell on the costliaess. Come presently,
then. I am at your disposal all day. I will drive you in
the afternoon to call on Lady Busshe to offer your thanks :
but you must see it first. It is laid out in the laboratory.'

'There is time before the afternoon,' said Clara.

'Wedding presents?' interposed De Craye.

'A porcelain service from Lady Busshe, Horace.'

' Not in fragments ? Let me have a look at it. I 'm
haunted by an idea that porcelain always goes to pieces.
I '11 have a look and take a hint. We 're in the laboratory.
Miss Middleton.'

He put his arm under Willoughby's. The resistance to
him was momentary : Willoughby had the satisfaction of
the thought that De Craye being with him was not with
Clara ; and seeing her giving orders to her maid Barclay,
he deferred his claim on her company for some short
period--

De Craye detained him in the laboratory, first over the
China cups and saucers, and then with the latest of London
— tales of youngest Cupid upon subterranean adventures,
having high titles to light him. Willoughby liked the tale
thus illuminated, for without the title there was no special
savour in such affairs, and it pulled down his betters in
rank. He was of a morality to reprobate the erring dame
whUe he enjoyed the incidents. He could not help in-
terrupting De Craye to point at Vernon through the
window, striding this way and that, evidently on the hunt
for young Crossjay. 'No one here knows how to manage
the boy except myself. But go on, Horace,' he said,

THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER 15

checking his contemptuous laugh; and Vernon did look
ridiculous, out there half-drenched already in a white rain,
again shuflEled off by the little rascal. It seemed that he
was determined to have his runaway : he struck up the
avenue at full pedestrian racing pace.

'A man looks a fool cutting after a cricket-ball; but
putting on steam in a storm of rain to catch a young
villain out of sight, beats anything I 've witnessed,'
WUloughby resumed, in his amusement.

'Aiha!' said De Craye, waving a hand to accompany
the melodious accent, ' there are things to beat that for fun.'

He had smoked in the laboratory, so Willoughby
directed a servant to transfer the porcelain service to one
of the sitting-rooms for Clara's inspection of it.

'You 're a bold man,' De Craye remarked. 'The luck
may be with you, though. I wouldn't handle the fragile
treasure for a trifle.'

'I believe in my luck,' said WUloughby.

Clara was now sought for. The lord of the house desired
her presence impatiently, and had to wait. She was in
none of the lower rooms. Barclay, her maid, upon
interrogation, declared she was in none of the upper.
Willoughby turned sharp on De Craye : he was there.

The ladies Eleanor and Isabel, and Miss Dale, were con-
sulted. They had nothing to say about Clara's move-
ments, more than that they could not understand her
exceeding restlessness. The idea of her being out of
doors grew serious; heaven was black, hard thunder
rolled, and lightning flushed the battering rain. Men
bearing umbrellas, shawls, and cloaks were despatched
on a circuit of the park. De Craye said : 'I '11 be one.'

'No,' cried Willoughby, starting to intercept him, 'I
can't allow it.'

'I 've the scent of a hound, WiUoughby ; I 'U soon be
on the track.'

16 THE EGOIST

'My dear Horace, I won't let you go.'

'Adieu, dear boy ! and if the lady 's discoverable, I 'm
the one to find her.'

He stepped to the umbrella-stand. There was then a
general question whether Clara had taken her umbrella.
Barclay said she had. The fact indicated a wider stroll
than round inside the park : Crossjay was likewise absent.
De Craye nodded to himself.

WUloughby struck a rattling blow on the barometer.

'Where 's Pollington?' he called, and sent word for his
man Pollington to bring big fishing-boots and waterproof
wrappers.

An urgent debate within him was in progress.

Should he go forth alone on his chance of discovering
Clara and forgiving her under his umbrella and cloak? or
should he prevent De Craye from going forth alone on the
chance he vaunted so impudently ?

'You will offend me, Horace, if you insist,' he said.

'Regard me as an instrument of destiny, WOloughby,'
replied De Craye.

'Then we go in company.'

' But that 's an addition of one that cancels the other by
conjunction, and 's worse than simple division : for I
can't trust my wits unless I rely on them alone, you see.'

'Upon my word, you talk at times most unintelligible
stuff, to be frank with you, Horace. Give it in English.'

' 'Tis not suited perhaps to the genius of the language,
for I thought I talked English.'

' Oh ! there 's English gibberish as well as Irish, we
know !'

'And a deal foolisher when they do go at it; for it
won't bear squeezing, we think, like Irish.'

'Where!' exclaimed the ladies, 'where can she be!
The storm is terrible.'

Lsetitia suggested the boathouse.

THE FLIGHT IN WILD WEATHER 17

'For Crossjay hadn't a swim this morning!' said De
Craye,

No one reflected on the absurdity that Clara should
think of taking Crossjay for a swim in the lake, and
immediately after his breakfast : it was accepted as a
suggestion at least that she and Crossjay had gone to the
lake for a row.

In the hopefulness of the idea, Willoughby suffered De
Craye to go on his chance unaccompanied. He was near
chuckling. He projected a plan for dismissing Crossjay
and remaining in the boathouse with Clara, luxuriating in
the prestige which would attach to him for seeking and
finding her. Deadly sentiments intervened. Still he
might expect to be alone with her where she could not slip
from him.

The throwing open of the hall-doors for the gentlemen
presented a framed picture of a deluge. All the young-
leaved trees were steely black, without a gradation of
green, drooping and pouring, and the song of rain had
become an inveterate hiss.

The ladies beholding it exclained against Clara, even
apostrophized her, so dark are trivial errors when circum-
stances frown. She must be mad to tempt such weather :
she was very giddy ; she was never at rest. Clara ! Clara !
how could you be so wild! Ought we not to tell Dr.
Middleton?

Lsetitia induced them to spare him.

'Which way do you take?' said Willoughby, rather
fearful that his companion was not to be got rid of now.

' Any way,' said De Craye. ' I chuck up my head like
a halfpenny and go by the toss.'

This enraging nonsense drove off Willoughby. De
Craye saw him cast a furtive eye at his heels to make
sure he was not followed, and thought : ' Jove ! he may
be fond of her. But he 's not on the track. She 's a

18 THE EGOIST

determined girl, if I 'm correct. She 's a girl of a hundred
thousand. Girls like that make the right sort of wives
for the right man. They 're the girls to make men think
of marrying. To-morrow ! only give me the chance.
They stick to you fast when they do stick.'

Then a thought of her flower-like drapery and face
caused him fervently to hope she had escaped the storm.

Calling at the West park-lodge he heard that Miss
Middleton had been seen passing through the gate with
Master Crossjay; but she had not been seen coming
back. Mr. Vernon Whitford had passed through half
an hour later.

'After his young man !' said the colonel.

The lodge-keeper's wife and daughter knew of Master
Crossjay's pranks ; Mr. Whitford, they said, had made in-
quiries about him, and must have caught him and sent
him home to change his dripping things; for Master
Crossjay had come back, and had declined shelter in the
lodge; he seemed to be crying; he went away soaking
over the wet grass, hanging his head. The opinion at the
lodge was, that Master Crossjay was unhappy.

'He very properly received a wigging from Mr. Whit-
ford, I have no doubt,' said Colonel De Craye.

Mother and daughter supposed it to be the case, and
considered Crossjay very wilful for not going straight home
to the Hall to change his wet clothes ; he was drenched.

De Craye drew out his watch. The time was ten
minutes past eleven. If the surmise he had distantly
spied was correct, Miss Middleton would have been caught
in the storm midway to her destination. By his guess at
her character (knowledge of it, he would have said), he
judged that no storm would daunt her on a predetermined
expedition. He deduced in consequence that she was at
the present moment flying to her friend the charming
brunette Lucy Darleton.

VERNON IN PURSUIT ^19

Still, as there was a possibility of the rain having been
too much for her, and as he had no other speculation con-
cerning the route she had taken, he decided upon keeping
along the road to Rendon, with a keen eye at cottage and
farmhouse windows.

CHAPTER XXVI

VERNON IN PUESUIT

The lodge-keeper had a son, who was a chum of Master
Crossjay's, and errant-fellow with him upon many adven-
tures ; for this boy's passion was to become a gamekeeper,
and accompanied by one of the head-gamekeeper's
youngsters, he and Crossjay were in the habit of rangeing
over the country, preparing for a profession delightful to
the tastes of all three. Crossjay's prospective connection
with the mysterious ocean bestowed the title of captain on
him by common consent ; he led them, and when missing
for lessons he was generally in the society of Jacob Groom
or Jonathan Femaway. Vernon made sure of Crossjay
when he perceived Jacob Croom sitting on a stool in the
little lodge-parlour. Jacob's appearance of a diligent
perusal of a book he had presented to the lad, he took for
a decent piece of trickery. It was with amazement that
he heard from the mother and daughter, as well as Jacob,
of Miss Middleton's going through the gate before ten
o'clock with Crossjay beside her, the latter too hurried to
spare a nod to Jacob. That she, of all on earth, should be
encouraging Crossjay to truancy was incredible. Vernon
had to fall back upon Greek and Latin aphoristic shots at
the sex to believe it.

Rain was universal ; a thick robe of it swept from hill
to,hill ; thunder rumbled remote, and between the ruffled

20 THE EGOIST

roars the downpour pressed on the land with a great noise
of eager gobbhng, much like that of the swine's trough
fresh filled, as though a vast assembly of the hungered had
seated themselves clamorously and fallen to on meats and
drinks in a silence, save of the chaps. A rapid walker
poetically and humourously minded gathers multitudes
of images on his way. And rain, the heaviest you can
meet, is a lively companion when the resolute pacer scorns
discomfort of wet clothes and squealing boots. South-
western rain-clouds, too, are never long sullen : they
enfold and will have the earth in a good strong glut of the
kissing overflow; then, as a hawk with feathers on his
beak of the bird in his claw lifts head, they rise and take
veiled feature in long climbing watery lines: at any
moment they may break the veU and show soft upper
cloud, show sun on it, show sky, green near the verge they
spring from, of the green of grass in early dew ; or, along
a travelling sweep that rolls asunder overhead, heaven's
laughter of purest blue among titanic white shoulders : it
may mean fair smiling for awhile, or be the lightest inter-
lude ; but the watery lines, and the drifting, the chasing,
the upsoaring, all in a shadowy fingering of form, and the
animation of the leaves of the trees pointing them on, the
bending of the tree-tops, the snapping of branches, and
the hurrahings of the stubborn hedge at wrestle with the
flaws, yielding but a leaf at most, and that on a fling, make
a glory of contest and wUdness without aid of colour to
inflame the man who is at home in them from old associa-
tion on road, heath and mountain. Let him be drenched,
his heart will sing. And thou, trim cockney, that jeerest,
consider thyself, to whom it may occur to be out in such a
scene, and with what steps of a nervous dancing master it
would be thine to play the hunted rat of the elements, for
the preservation of the one imagined dry spot about thee,
somewhere on thy luckless person! The taking of rain

VERNON IN PURSUIT 21

and sun alike befits men of our climate, and he who would
have the secret of a strengthening intoxication must court
the clouds of the South-west with a lover's blood.

Vernon's happy recklessness was dashed by fears for
Miss Middleton. Apart from those fears, he had the
pleasure of a gull wheeling among foam-streaks of the
wave. He supposed the Swiss and Tyrol Alps to have
hidden their heads from him for many a day to come, and
the springing and chiming South-west was the next best
thing. A milder rain descended ; the country expanded
darkly defined underneath the moving curtain; the
clouds were as he liked to see them, scaling; but their
skirts dragged. Torrents were in store, for they coursed
streamingly still and had not the higher lift, or eagle as-
cent, which he knew for one of the signs of fairness, nor
had the hills any belt of mist-Hke vapour.

On a step of the stile leading to the short-cut to Rendon
young Crossjay was espied. A man-tramp sat on the top
bar.

' There you are ; what are you doing there ? Where 's
Miss Middleton?' said Vernon. 'Now, take care before
you open your mouth.'

Crossjay shut the mouth he had opened.

' The lady has gone away over to a station, sir,' said the
tramp.

'You fool !' roared Crossjay, ready to fly at him.

'But ain't it, now, young gentleman? Can you say it
ain't?'

'I give you a shilling, you ass !'

' You give me that sum, young gentleman, to stop here
and take care of you, and here I stopped.'

'Mr. Whitford!' Crossjay appealed to his master, and
broke off in disgust : 'Take care of me ! As if anybody
who knows me would think I wanted taking care of!
Why, what a beast you must be, you fellow !'

22 THE EGOIST

'Just as you like, young gentleman. I chaunted you
all I know, to keep up your downcast spirits. You did
want comforting. You wanted it rarely. You cried
like an infant.'

'I let you "chaunt" as you call it, to keep you from
swearing.'

'And why did I swear, young gentleman? because I 've
got an itchy coat in the wet, and no shirt for a lining. And
no breakfast to give me a stomach for this kind of weather.
That 's what I 've come to in this world ! I 'm a walking
moral. No wonder I swears, when I don't strike up a
chaunt.'

'But why are you sitting here, wet through, Crossjay?
Be off home at once, and change, and get ready for me.'

'Mr. Whitford, I promised, and I tossed this fellow a
shilling not to go bothering Miss Middleton.'

'The lady wouldn't have none o' the young gentleman,
sir, and I offered to go pioneer for her to the station, behind
her, at a respectful distance.'

'As if! — you treacherous cur!' Crossjay ground his
teeth at the betrayer. 'Well, Mr. Whitford, and I didn't
trust him, and I stuck to him, or he 'd have been after her
whining about" his coat and stomach, and talking of his
being a moral. He repeats that to everybody.'

' She has gone to the station ? ' said Vernon.

Not a word on that subject was to be won from Crossjay.

'How long since?' Vernon partly addressed Mr.
Tramp.

The latter became seized with shivers as he supplied
the information that it might be a quarter of an hour or
twenty minutes. ' But what 's time to me, sir ! If I
had reg'lar meals, I should carry a clock in my inside.
I got the rheumatics instead.'

'Way there!' Vernon cried, and took the stile at a
vault.

VERNON IN PURSUIT 23

'That 's what gentlemen can do, who sleeps in
their beds warm,' moaned the tramp. 'They 've no
-joints.'

Vernon handed him a half-crown piece, for he had been
of use for once.

' Mr. Whitf ord, let me come. If you tell me to come I
may. Do let me come,' Crossjay begged with great en-
treaty. 'I shan't see her for . . .'

'Be off, quick!' Vernon cut him short and pushed
on.

The tramp and Crossjay were audible to him;
Crossjay spuming the consolations of the professional
sad man.

Vernon sprang across the fields, timing himself by his
watch to reach Rendon station ten minutes before eleven,
though without clearly questioning the nature of the
resolution which precipitated him. Dropping to the road,
he had better foothold than on the sUppery field-path, and
he ran. His principal hope was that Clara would have
missed her way. Another pelting of rain agitated him on
her behalf. Might she not as well be suffered to go? —
and sit three hours and more in a railway-carriage with
wet feet !

He clasped the visionary little feet to warm them on his
breast. — But WiUoughby's obstinate fatuity deserved
the blow ! — But neither she nor her father deserved
the scandal. But she was desperate. Could reasoning
touch her? If not, what would? He knew of nothing.
Yesterday he had spoken strongly to WiUoughby, to plead
with him to favour her departure and give her leisure to
sound her mind, and he had left his cousin, convinced that
Clara's best measure was flight : a man so cunning in a
pretended obtuseness backed by senseless pride, and ia
petty tricks that sprang of a grovelling tyranny, could only
be taught by facts.

24 THE EGOIST

Her recent treatment of him, however, was very strange ;
so strange that he might have known himself better if he
had reflected on the bond with which it shot him to a
hard suspicion. De Craye had prepared the world to hear
that he was leaving the Hall. Were they in concert?
The idea struck at his heart colder than if her damp little
feet had been there.

Vernon's full exoneration of her for making a confidant
of himself, did not extend its leniency to the young lady's
character when there was question of her doing the same
with a second gentleman. He could suspect much: he
could even expect to find De Craye at the station.

That idea drew him up in his run, to meditate on the
part he should play; and by drove little Dr. Corney on
the way to Rendon, and haUed him, and gave his cheerless
figure the nearest approach to an Irish hug in the form
of a dry seat under an umbrella and waterproof
covering.

'Though it is the worst I can do for you, if you decline
to supplement it with a dose of hot brandy and water at
the Dolphin,' said he : ' and I '11 see you take it, if you
please. I 'm bound to ease a Rendon patient out of the
world. Medicine 's one of their superstitions, which they
cling to the harder the more useless it gets. Pill and
priest launch him happy between them. — "And what 's
on your conscience, Pat ? — It 's whether your blessing,
your Riverence, would disagree with another drop. —
Then, put the horse before the cart, my son, and you shall
have the two in harmony, and God speed ye !" — Rendon
station, did you say, Vernon? You shall have my
prescription at the Railway Arms, if you 're hurried.
You have the look. What is it? Can I help?'

'No. And don't ask.'

' You 're like the Irish Grenadier who had a bullet in a
humiliating situation. Here 's Rendon, and through it

VERNON IN PURSUIT 25

we go with a spanking clatter. Here 's Dr. Corney's dog-
cart posthaste again. For there 's no dying without him
now, and Repentance is on the death-bed for not calling
him in before ! Half a charge of humbug hurts no son of
a gun, friend Vernon, if he 'd have his firing take effect.
Be tender to 't in man or woman, particularly woman.
So, by goes the meteoric doctor, and I '11 bring noses to
window-panes, you '11 see, which reminds me of the
sweetest young lady 1 ever saw, and the luckiest man.
When is she off for her bridal trousseau ? And when are
they spliced ? I '11 not call her perfection, for that 's a
post, afraid to move. But she 's a dancing sprig of the
tree next it. Poetry 's wanted to speak of her. I 'm
Irish and inflammable, I suppose, but I never looked on a
girl to make a man comprehend the entire holy meaning
of the word rapturous, like that one. And away she goes !
We '11 not say another word. But you 're a Grecian,
friend Vernon. Now, couldn't you think her just a whiff
of an idea of a daughter of a peccadillo-Goddess ? '

' Deuce take you, Corney, drop me here ; I shall be late
for the train,' said Vernon, laying hand on the doctor's
arm to check him on the way to the station in view.

Dr. Corney had a Celtic intelhgence for a meaning
behind an illogical tongue. He drew up, observing :
'Two minutes' run won't hurt you.'

He slightly fancied he might have given offence, though
he was well acquainted with Vernon and had a cordial
grasp at the parting.

The truth must be told, that Vernon could not at the
moment bear any more talk from an Irishman. Dr.
Corney had succeeded in persuading him not to wonder
at Clara Middleton's hking for Colonel De Craye.

26 THE EGOIST

CHAPTER XXVII

AT THE RAILWAY STATION

Claba stood in the waiting-room contemplating the white
rails of the rain-swept line. Her lips parted at the sight of
Vernon.

'You have your ticket?' said he.

She nodded, and breathed more freely; the matter of
fact question was reassuring.

'You are wet,' he resumed ; and it could not be denied.

'A little. I do not feel it.'

'I must beg you to come to the inn hard by: half a
dozen steps. We shall see your train signalled. Come.'

She thought him startlingly authoritative, but he had
good sense to back him ; and depressed as she was by the
dampness, she was disposed to yield to reason if he con-
tinued to respect her independence. So she submitted
outwardly, resisted inwardly, on the watch to stop him
from taking any decisive lead.

'Shall we be sure to see the signal, Mr. Whitford?'

'I '11 provide for that.'

He spoke to the station-clerk, and conducted her across
the road.

'You are quite alone, Miss Middleton?'

'I am : I have not brought my maid.'

'You must take off boots and stockings at once, and
have them dried. I '11 put you in the hands of the land-
lady.'

'But my train!'

'You have full fifteen minutes, besides fair chances of
delay.'

He seemed reasonable, the reverse of hostile, in spite of

AT THE RAILWAY STATION 27

his commanding air, and that was not unpleasant in one
friendly to her adventure. She controlled her alert mis-
trustfulness and passed from him to the landlady, for her
feet were wet and cold, the skirts of her dress were soiled ;
generally inspecting herself, she was an object to be
shuddered at, and she was grateful to Vernon for his
inattention to her appearance.

Vernon ordered Dr. Comey's dose, and was ushered
upstairs to a room of portraits, where the publican's
ancestors and family sat against the walls, flat on their
canvas as weeds of the botanist's portfolio, although
corpulency was pretty generally insisted on, and there
were formidable battalions of bust among the females.
All of them had the aspect of the national energy which
has vanquished obstacles to subside on its ideal. They
all gazed straight at the guest. 'Drink, and come to
this !' they might have been labelled to say to him. He
was in the private Walhalla of a large class of his country-
men. The existing host had taken forethought to be of
the party in his prime, and in the central place, looking
fresh-flattened there, and sanguine from the performance.
By-and-by a son would shove him aside ; meanwhile he
shelved his parent, according to the manners of energy.

One should not be a critic of our works of Art in uncom-
fortable garments. Vernon turned from the portraits to
a stuffed pike in a glass-case, and plunged into sympathy
with the fish for a refuge.

Clara soon rejoined him, saying : 'But you, you must
be very wet. You are without an umbrella. You must
be wet through, Mr. Whitford.'

'We're all wet through to-day,' said Vernon. 'Cross-
jay's wet through, and a tramp he met.'

'The horrid man! But Crossjay should have turned
back when I told him. Cannot the landlord assist you?
You are not tied to time. I begged Crossjay to turn back

28 THE EGOIST

when it began to rain : when it became heavy I compelled
him. So you met my poor Crossjay?'

'You have not to blame him for betraying you. The
tramp did that. I was thrown on your track quite by
accident. Now pardon me for using authority: and
don't be alarmed, Miss Middleton ; you are perfectly free
for me ; but you must not run a risk to your health. I
met Dr. Corney coming along, and he prescribed hot
brandy and water for a wet skin; especially for sitting
in it. There 's the stuff on the table ; I see you have been
aware of a singular odour; you must consent to sip
some, as medicine; merely to give you warmth.'

' Impossible, Mr. Whitf ord : I could not taste it. But
pray, obey Dr. Corney, if he ordered it for you.'

'I can't unless you do.'

'I will, then: I will try.'

She held the glass, attempted, and was baffled by the
reek of it.

'Try : you can do anything,' said Vernon.

' Now that you find me here, Mr. Whitf ord ! Anything
for myself, it would seem, and nothing to save a friend.
But I will really try.'

'It must be a good mouthful.'

'I will try. And you will finish the glass?'

'With your permission, if you do not leave too much.'

They were to drink out of the same glass ; and she was
to drink some of this infamous mixture : and she was in a
kind of hotel alone with him: and he was drenched in
running after her : — all this came of breaking loose for an
hour!

' Oh ! what a misfortune that it should be such a d^y,
Mr. Whitford.'

'Did you not choose the day?'

'Not the weather.'

'And the worst of it is, that WUloughby will come upon

AT THE RAILWAY STATION 29

Crossjay wet to the bone, and pump him and get nothing
but shufflings, blank lies, and then find him out and chase
him from the house. '

Clara drank immediately, and more than she intended.
She held the gUiss as an enemy to be delivered from,
gasping, uncertain of her breath.

'Never let me be asked to endure such a thing again !'

'You are unhkely to be running away from father and
friends again.'

She panted still with the fiery liquid she had gulped :
and she wondered that it should belie its reputation in not
fortifying her, but rendering her painfully susceptible to
his remarks.

' Mr. Whitf ord, I need not seek to know what you think
of me.'

' What I think ? I don't think at all ; I wish to serve
you, if I can.'

'Am I right in supposing you a little afraid of me?
You should not be. I have deceived no one. I have
opened my heart to you, and am not ashamed of having
done so.'

' It is an excellent habit, they say.'

'It is not a habit with me.'

He was touched, and for that reason, in his dissatisfac-
tion with himself, not unwilling to hurt. 'We take our
turn. Miss Middleton. I 'm no hero, and a bad con-
spirator, so I am not of much avaU.'

' You have been reserved — ^but I am going, and I leave
my character behind. You condemned me to the poison-
bowl ; you have not touched it yourself.'

' In vino Veritas : if I do I shall be speaking my mind.'

'Then do, for the sake of mind and body.'

*It won't be complimentary.'

'You can be harsh. Only say everything.'

'Have we time?'

30 THE EGOIST

They looked at their watches.

'Six minutes,' Clara said.

Vernon's had stopped, penetrated by his total drench-
ing.

She reproached herself. He laughed to quiet her.
' My dies solemnes are sure to give me duckings ; I 'm
used to them. As for the watch, it will remind me that
it stopped when you went.'

She raised the glass to him. She was happier and
hoped for some little harshness and kindness mixed that
she might carry away to travel with and think over.

He turned the glass as she had given it, turned it round
in putting it to his lips : a scarce perceptible manoeuvre,
but that she had given it expressly on one side.

It may be hoped that it was not done by design. Done
even accidentally, without a taint of contrivance, it was
an affliction to see, and coiled through her, causing her to
shrink and redden.

Fugitives are subject to strange incidents ; they are not
vessels lying safe in harbour. She shut her lips tight, as
if they had been stung. The realizing sensitiveness of her
quick nature accused them of a loss of bloom. And the
man who made her smart like this was formal as a railway-
official on a platform !

' Now we are both pledged in the poison-bowl,' said he.
'And it has the taste of rank poison, I confess. But the
doctor prescribed it, and at sea we must be sailors. Now,
Miss Middleton, time presses : will you return with me?'

'No! no!'

'Where do you propose to go?'

'To London; to a friend — Miss Darleton.'

'What message is there for your father?'

'Say, I have left a letter for him in a letter to be
delivered to you.'

'To me. And what message for Willoughby?'

AT THE RAILWAY STATION 31

' My maid Barclay will hand him a letter at noon.'

'You have sealed Crossjay's fate.'

'How?'

' He is probably at this instant undergoing an interroga-
tion. You may guess at his replies. The letter will
expose him, and WDloughby does not pardon.'

'I regret it. I cannot avoid it. Poor boy ! My dear
Cross] ay! I did not think of how Willoughby might
punish him. I was very thoughtless. Mr. Whitford,
my pinmoney shall go for his education. Later, when I
am a little older, I shall be able to support him.'

'That 's an encumbrance; you should not tie yourself
to drag it about. You are inalterable, of course, but
circumstances are not, and as it happens, women are
more subject to them than we are.'

'But I will not be!'

'Your command of them is shown at the present
moment.'

'Because I determine to be free?'

' No : because you do the contrary ; you don't deter-
mine ; you run away from the difficulty, and leave it to
your father and friends to bear. As for Crossjay, you
see you destroy one of his chances. I should have carried
him off before this, if I had not thought it prudent to keep
him on terms with Willoughby. We '11 let Crossjay
stand aside. He 'U behave like a man of honour, imitat-
ing others who have had to do the same for ladies.'

'Have spoken falsely to shelter cowards, you mean,
Mr. Whitford. Oh ! I know. — ^I have but two minutes.
The die is cast. I cannot go back. I must get ready.
Will you see me to the station? I would rather you
should hurry home.'

'I will see the last of you. I will wait for you here.
An express runs ahead of your train, and I have arranged
with the clerk for a signal ; I have an eye on the window.'

32 THE EGOIST

' You are still my best friend, Mr. Whitford.'

'Though ?'

'Well, though you do not perfectly understand what
torments have driven me to this.'

'Carried on tides and blown by winds?'

'Ah ! you do not understand.'

'Mysteries?'

'Sufferings are not mysteries, they are very simple
facts.'

'Well, then, I don't understand. But decide at once.
I wish you to have your free will.'

She left the room.

Dry stockings and boots are better for travelling in than
wet ones, but in spite of her direct resolve, she felt when
drawing them on like one that has been tripped. The goal
was desireable, the ardour was damped. Vernon's wish
that she should have her free will, compelled her to sound
it : and it was of course to go, to be liberated, to cast off
incubus: — ^and hurt her father? injure Cross jay? dis-
tress her friends ? No, and ten times no !

She returned to Vernon in haste, to shun the reflex of
her mind.

He was looking at a closed carriage drawn up at the
station-door.

' Shall we run over now, Mr. Whitford ? '

'There 's no signal. Here it 's not so chilly.'

' I ventured to enclose my letter to papa in yours, trust-
ing you would attend to my request to you to break the
news to him gently and plead for me.'

'We will all do the utmost we can.'

'I am doomed to vex those who care for me. I tried
to follow your counsel.'

'First you spoke to me, and then you spoke to Miss
Dale ; and at least you have a clear conscience.'

'No.'

AT THE RAILWAY STATION 33

'What burdens it?'

'I have done nothing to burden it.'

'Then it 's a clear conscience?'

'No.'

Vernon's shoulders jerked. Our patience with an inno-
cent duplicity in women is measured by the place it
assigns to us and another. If he had liked he could have
thought : ' You have not done but meditated something
to trouble conscience.' That was evident, and her speak-
ing of it was proof too of the willingness to be clear. He
would not help her. Man's blood, which is the link with
women and responsive to them on the instant for or
against, obscured him. He shrugged anew when she
said: 'My character would have been degraded utterly
by my staying there. Could you advise it?'

'Certainly not the degradation of your character,' he
said, black on the subject of De Craye, and not lightened
by feelings which made him sharply sensible of the
beggarly dependent that he was, or poor adventuring
scribbler that he was to become.

'Why did you pursue me and wish to stop me, Mr.
Whitford?' said Clara, on the spur of a wound from his
tone.

He replied : 'I suppose I 'm a busybody : I was never
aware of it till now.'

'You are my friend. Only you speak in irony so much.
That was irony, about my clear conscience. I spoke to
you and to Miss Dale : and then I rested and drifted.
Can you not feel for me, that to mention it is like a scorch-
ing furnace? Willoughby has entangled papa. He
schemes incessantly to keep me entangled. I fly from
his cunning as much as from anything. I dread it. I
have told you that I am more to blame than he, but I
must accuse him. And wedding-presents ! and con-
gratulations ! And to be his guest !'

34 THE EGOIST

'All that makes up a plea in mitigation,' said Vernon.

'It is not sufficient for you?' she asked him timidly.

'You have a masculine good sense that tells you you
won't be respected if you run. Three more days there
might cover a retreat with your father.'

'He will not listen to me! He confuses me; Wil-
loughby has bewitched him.'

'Commission me : I will see that he listens.'

'And go back? Oh! no. To London! Besides there
is the dining with Mrs. Mountstuart this evening; and
I like her very well, but I must avoid her. She has a
kind of idolatry . . . And what answers can I give? I
supplicate her with looks. She observes them, my
efforts to divert them from being painful produce a comie
expression to her, and I am a charming "rogue," and I
am entertained on the topic she assumes to be principally
interesting me. I must avoid her. The thought of her
leaves me no choice. She is clever. She could tattoo
me with epigrams.'

'Stay : there you can hold your own.'

'She has told me you give me credit for a spice of wit.
I have not discovered my possession. We have spoken
of it; we call it your delusion. She grants me some
beauty; that must be hers.'

'There's no delusion in one case or the other, Miss
Middleton. You have beauty and wit: public opinion
will say, wildness: indifference to your reputation, will
be charged on you, and your friends will have to admit it.
But you will be out of this difficulty.'

' Ah ! — ^to weave a second ? '

'Impossible to judge until we see how you escape the
first. — ^And I have no more to say. I love your father.
His humour of sententiousness and doctorial stilts is a.
mask he delights in, but you ought to know him and not.
be frightened by it. If you sat with him an hour at a

AT THE RAILWAY STATION 35

Latin task, and if you took his hand and told liim you
could not leave him, and no tears ! — ^he would answer
you at once. It would involve a day or two further:
disagreeable to you, no doubt : preferable to the present
mode of escape, as I think. But I have no power what-
ever to persuade. I have not the "lady's tongue." My
appeal is always to reason.'

'It is a compliment. I loathe the "lady's tongue.'"

' It 's a distinctly good gift, and I wish I had it. I
might have succeeded instead of failing, and appearing to
pay a compliment.'

'Surely the express train is very late, Mr. Whitford?'

'The express has gone by.'

'Then we will cross over.'

'You would rather not be seen by Mrs. Mountstuart.
That is her carriage drawn up at the station, and she is
in it.'

Clara looked, and with the sinking of her heart said :
'I must brave her !'

'In that case, I will take my leave of you here, Miss
Middleton.'

She gave him her hand. 'Why is Mrs. Moimtstuart
at the station to-day?'

'I suppose she has driven to meet one of the guests for
her dinner-party. Professor Crookl3Ti was promised to
your father, and he may be coming by the down-train.'

'Go back to the Hall!' exclaimed Clara. 'How can
I? I have no more endurance left in me. If I had
some support ! — ^if it were the sense of secretly doing
wrong, it might help me through. I am in a web. I
cannot do right, whatever I do. There is only the thought
of saving Crossjay. Yes, and sparing papa. — Good-bye,
Mr. Whitford. I shall remember your kindness grate-
fully. I cannot go back.'
^ 'You will not?' said he, tempting her to hesitate.

36 THE EGOIST

I 'No.'

'But if you are seen by Mrs. Mountstuart, you must go
back. I '11 do my best to take her away. Should she
see you, you must patch up a story and apply to her for
a lift. That, I think, is imperative.'

' Not to my mind,' said Clara.

He bowed hurriedly and withdrew. After her confes-
sion, peculiar to her, of possibly finding sustainment in
secretly doing wrong, her flying or remaining seemed to
him a choice of evils : and whilst she stood in bewildered
speculation on his reason for pursuing her — which was
not evident — he remembered the special fear inciting
him, and so far did her justice as to have at himself on
that subject. He had done something perhaps to save
her from a cold : such was his only consolatory thought.
He had also behaved like a man of honour, taking no
personal advantage of her situation ; but to reflect on it
recalled his astonishing dryness. The strict man of
honour plays a part that he should not reflect on till
about the fall of the curtain, otherwise he will be likely
sometimes to feel the shiver of foolishness at his good
conduct.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE KETXJBN

Posted in observation at a corner of the window, Clara
saw Vernon cross the road to Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkin-
son's carriage, transformed to the leanest pattern of him-
self by narrowed shoulders and raised coat-collar. He
had such an air of saying, 'Tom 's a-cold,' that her sMn
crept in sympathy.
Presently he left the carriage and went into the station :

THE RETURN 37

a bell had rung. Was it her train? He approved her
going, for he was employed in assisting her to go: a
proceeding at variance with many things he had said,
but he was as full of contradiction to-day as women are
accused of being. The train came up. She trembled:
no signal had appeared, and Vernon must have deceived
her.

He returned; he entered the carriage, and the wheels
were soon ia motion. Immediately thereupon. Flitch's
fly drove past, containing Colonel De Craye.

Vernon could not but have perceived him !

But what was it that had brought the colonel to this
place? The pressure of Vernon's mind was on her and
foiled her efforts to assert her perfect innocence, though
she knew she had done nothing to allure the colonel
hither. Excepting Willoughby, Colonel De Craye was
the last person she would have wished to encounter.

She had now a dread of hearing the bell which would
tell her that Vernon had not deceived her, and that she
was out of his hands, in the hands of some one else.

She bit at her glove ; she glanced at the concentrated
eyes of the pubUcan's family portraits, all looking as one ;
she noticed the empty tumbler, and went round to it and
touched it, and the silly spoon in it.

A little yielding to desperation shoots us to strange
distances !

Vernon had asked her whether she was alone. Con-
necting that inquiry, singular in itself, and singular in his
manner of putting it, with the glass of burning liquid, she
repeated: 'He must have seen Colonel De Craye!' and
she stared at the empty glass, as at something that wit-
nessed to something : for Vernon was not your supple
cavalier assiduously on the smirk to pia a gallantry to
commonplaces. But all the doors are not open in a young
lady's consciousness, quick of nature though she may be :

38 THE EGOIST

some are locked and keyless, some will not open to the
key, some are defended by ghosts inside. She could not
have said what the something witnessed to. If we by
chance know more, we have still no right to make it
more prominent than it was with her. And the smell
of the glass was odious; it disgraced her. She had an
impulse to pocket the spoon for a memento, to show it to
grandchildren for a warning. Even the prelude to the
morality to be uttered on the occasion sprang to her
lips : ' Here, my dears, is a spoon you would be ashamed
to use in your tea-cups, yet it was of more value to me
at one period of my life than silver and gold in pointing
out,' etc. : the conclusion was hazy, like the conception ;
she had her idea.

And in this mood she ran downstairs and met Colonel
De Craye on the station steps.

The bright illumination of his face was that of the
confident man confirmed in a risky guess in the crisis of
doubt and dispute,

'Miss Middleton!' his joyful surprise predominated:
the pride of an accurate forecast, adding : 'I am not too
late to be of service?'

She thanked him for the offer.

'Have you dismissed the fly. Colonel De Craye?'

'I have just been getting change to pay Mr. Flitch. He
passed me on the road. He is interwound with our fates,
to a certainty. I had only to jump in; I knew it, and
rolled along like a magician commanding a genie.'

'Have I been . . . ?'

'Not seriously, nobody doubts your being under
shelter. You will allow me to protect you? My time
is yours.'

'I was thinking of a running visit to my friend Miss
Darleton.'

'May I venture? I had the fancy that you wished to

THE RETURN 39

see Miss Darleton to-day. You cannot make the journey
unescorted.'

'Please retain the fly. Where is Willoughby?'

'He is in jack-boots. But may I not, Miss Middleton?
I shall never be forgiven, if you refuse me.'

'There has been searching for me?'

'Some hallooing. But why am I rejected? Besides
I don't require the fly; I shall walk if I am banished.
Flitch is a wonderful conjuror, but the virtue is out of
him for the next four and twenty hours. And it will
be an opportunity to me to make my bow to Miss
Darleton !'

'She is rigorous on the conventionaUties, Colonel De
Craye.'

'I '11 appear before her as an ignoramus or a rebel,
whichever she likes best to take in leading strings. I re-
member her. I was greatly struck by her.'

'Upon recollection !'

'Memory didn't happen to be handy at the first
mention of the lady's name. As the general said of his
ammunition and transport, there 's the army ! — but it
was leagues in the rear. Like the footman who went to
sleep after smelling fire in the house, I was thinking of
other things. It will serve me right to be forgotten —
if I am. I 've a curiosity to know : a remainder of my
coxcombry. Not that exactly: a wish to see the im-
pression I made on your friend. — None at all? But
any pebble casts a ripple.'

'That is hardly an impression,' said Clara, pacifying
her irresoluteness with this light talk.

'The utmost to be hoped for by men like me ! I have
your permission? — one minute — ^I will get my ticket.'

'Do not,' said Clara.

'Your man-servant entreats you!'

She signified a decided negative with the head, but her

40 THE EGOIST

eyes were dreamy. She breathed deep : this thing done
would cut the cord. Her sensation of languor swept over
her.

De Craye took a stride. He was accosted by one of the
railway-porters. Flitch's fly was in request for a gentle-
man. A portly old gentleman bothered about luggage
appeared on the landing.

'The gentleman can have it,' said De Craye, handing
Flitch his money.

' Open the door,' Clara said to Flitch.

He tugged at the handle with enthusiasm. The door
was open : she stepped in.

'Then, mount the box and I '11 jump up beside you,'
De Craye called out, after the passion of regretful astonish-
ment had melted from his features.

Clara directed him to the seat fronting her; he pro-
tested indifference to the wet ; she kept the door unshut.
His temper would have preferred to buffet the angry
weather. The invitation was too sweet.

She heard now the bell of her own train. Driving be-
side the railway embankment she met the train : it was
eighteen minutes late, by her watch. And why, when it
flung up its whale-spouts of steam, she was not journey-
ing in it she could not tell. She had acted of her free will :
that she could say. Vernon had not induced her to re-
main ; assuredly her present companion had not ; and her
whole heart was for flight : yet she was driving back to
the Hall, not devoid of calmness. She speculated on
the circumstances enough to think herself incomprehen-
sible, and there left it, intent on the scene to come with
Willoughby.

' I must choose a better day for London, ' she remarked.

De Craye bowed, but did not remove his eyes from
her.

'Miss Middleton, you do not trust me.'

THE RETURN 41

She answered: 'Say in what way. It seems to me
that I do.'

'I may speak?'

'If it depends on my authority.'

'FuUy?'

' Whatever you have to say. Let me stipulate, be not
very grave. I want cheering in wet weather.'

'Miss Middleton, FUtch is charioteer once more.
Think of it. There 's a tide that carries him perpetually
to the place whence he was cast forth, and a thread that
ties us to him in continuity. I have not the honour to be
a friend of long standing: one ventures on one's de-
votion : it dates from the first moment of my seeing you.
Flitch is to blame, if any one. Perhaps the spell would
be broken, were he reinstated in his ancient office.'

'Perhaps it would,' said Clara, not with her best of
smiles. Willoughby's pride of relentlessness appeared
to her to be receiving a blow by rebound, and that seemed
high justice.

'I am afraid you were right; the poor fellow has no
chance,' De Craye pursued. He paused, as for decorum
in the presence of misfortune, and laughed sparklingly :
'Unless I engage him, or pretend to! I verily believe
that Flitch's melancholy person on the skirts of the Hall
completes the picture of the Eden within. — Why will
you not put some trust in me. Miss Middleton ? '

' But why should you not pretend to engage him, then.
Colonel De Craye?'

'We 'U plot it, if you like. Can you trust me for
that?'

' For any act of disinterested kindness, I am sure.'

'You mean it?'

'Without reserve. You could talk publicly of taking
him to London.'
^ 'Miss Middleton, just now you were going. My arrival

42 THE EGOIST

changed your mind. You distrust me : and ought I to
wonder? The wonder would be all the other way. You
have not had the sort of report of me which would per-
suade you to confide, even in a case of extremity. I
guessed you were going. Do you ask me, how? I
cannot say. Through what they call sympathy, and
that 's inexplicable. There 's natural sympathy, natural
antipathy. People have to live together to discover how
deep it is !'

Clara breathed her dumb admission of this truth.

The fly jolted and threatened to lurch.

'Flitch! my dear man!' the colonel gave a murmuring
remonstrance; 'for,' said he to Clara, whom his apos-
trophe to Flitch had set smiling, 'we 're not safe with
him, however we make believe, and he '11 be jerking the
heart out of me before he has done. — But if two of us have
not the misfortune to be united when they come to the
discovery, there 's hope. That is, if one has courage, and
the other has wisdom. Otherwise they may go to the
yoke in spite of themselves. The great enemy is Pride,
who has them both in a coach and drives them to the fatal
door, and the only thing to do is to knock him off his box
while there 's a minute to spare. And as there 's no
pride like the pride of possession, the deadliest wound to
him is to make that doubtful. Pride won't be taught
wisdom in any other fashion. But one must have the
courage to do it !'

De Craye trifled with the window-sash, to give his words
time to sink in solution.

Who but WDloughby stood for Pride? And who,
swayed by languor, had dreamed of a method that would
be surest and swiftest to teach him the wisdom of sur-
rendering her?

'You know, Miss Middleton, I study character,' said
the colonel.

THE RETURN 43

'I see that you do,' she answered.

'You intend to return?'

'Oh! decidedly.'

'The day is unfavourable for travelling, I must say.'

'It is.'

'You may count on my discretion in the fullest degree.
I throw myself on your generosity when I assure you
that it was not my design to surprise a secret. I guessed
the station, and went there, to put myself at your
disposal.'

'Did you,' said Clara, reddening slightly, 'chance to
see Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson's carriage pass you
when you drove up to the station?'

De Craye had passed a carriage. 'I did not see the
lady. She was in it?'

'Yes. And therefore it is better to put discretion on
one side : we may be certain she saw you.'

'But not you. Miss Middleton?'

'I prefer to think that I am seen. I have a descrip-
tion of courage. Colonel De Craye, when it is forced
on me.'

'I have not suspected the reverse. Courage wants
training, as well as other fine capacities. Mine is often
rusty and rheumatic'

'I cannot hear of concealment or plotting.'

'Except, pray, to advance the cause of poor Flitch!'

'He shall be excepted.'

The colonel screwed his head round for a glance at his
coachman's back.

'Perfectly guaranteed to-day !' he said of Flitch's look
of solidity. 'The convulsion of the elements appears to
sober our friend; he is only dangerous in calms. Five
minutes will bring us to the park-gates.'

Clara leaned forward to gaze at the hedgeways in the
neighbourhood of the Hall, strangely renewing their

44 THE EGOIST

familiarity with her. Both in thought and sensation she
was Kke a flower beaten to earth, and she thanked her
feminine mask for not showing how nerveless and languid
she was. She could have accused Vernon of a treacher-
ous cunning for imposing it on her free will to decide her
fate.

Involuntarily she sighed.

'There is a train at three/ said De Craye, with splen-
did promptitude.

'Yes, and one at five. We dine with Mrs. Mount-
stuart to-night. And I have a passion for solitude ! I
think I was never intended for obligations. The moment
I am bound I begin to brood on freedom.'

'Ladies who say that, Miss Middleton . . . !'

'What of them?'

'They 're feeling too much alone.'

She could not combat the remark: by her self-assur-
ance that she had the principle of faithfulness, she acknow-
ledged to herself the truth of it : — there is no freedom for
the weak! Vernon had said that once. She tried to
resist the weight of it, and her sheer inability precipitated
her into a sense of pitiful dependence.

Half an hour earlier it would have been a perilous con-
dition to be traversing in the society of a closely-scanning
reader of fair faces. Circumstances had changed. They
were at the gates of the park.

'Shall I leave you?' said De Craye.

'Why should you?' she replied.

He bent to her gracefully.

The nuld subservience flattered Clara's languor. He
had not compelled her to be watchful on her guard, and
she was tmaware that he passed it when she acquiesced
to his observation: 'An anticipatory story is a trap to
the teller.'

'It is,' she said. She had been thinking as much.

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 45

He threw up his head to consult the bram comically
with a dozen little blinks.

'No, you are right, Miss Middleton, inventing before-
hand never prospers ; 'tis a way to trip our own clever-
ness. Truth and mother-wit are the best counsellors:
and as you are the former, I '11 try to act up to the char-
acter you assign me.'

Some tangle, more prospective than present, seemed to
be about her as she reflected. But her intention being to
speak to WiUoughby without subterfuge, she was grate-
ful to her companion for not tempting her to swerve.
No one could doubt his talent for elegant fibbing, and she
was in the humour both to admire and adopt the art, so
she was glad to be rescued from herself. How mother-
wit was to second truth, she did not inquire, and as she
did not happen to be thinking of Crossjay, she was not
troubled by having to consider how truth and his tale
of the morning would be likely to harmonize.

Driving down the park she had full occupation in ques-
tioning whether her return would be pleasing to Vernon,
who was the virtual cause of it, though he had done so
little to promote it : so little that she really doubted his
pleasure in seeking her return.

CHAPTER XXIX

IN WHICH THE SENSITIVENESS OF SIR WILLOTJGHBT IS
EXPLAINED : AND HE RECEIVES MUCH INSTRUCTION

The Hall-clock over the stables was then striking twelve.
It was the hour for her flight to be made known, and Clara
sat in a turmoil of dim apprehension that prepared her
nervous frame for a painful blush on her being asked by

46 THE EGOIST

Colonel De Craye whether she had set her watch correctly.
He must, she understood, have seen through her at the
breakfast-table : and was she not cruelly indebted to
him for her evasion of Willoughby ? Such perspicacity of
vision distressed and frightened her; at the same time
she was obliged to acknowledge that he had not presumed
on it. Her dignity was in no way the worse for him.
But it had been at a man's mercy, and there was the
affliction.

She jumped from the fly as if she were leaving danger
behind. She could at the moment have greeted Wil-
loughby with a conventionally friendly smile. The doors
were thrown open and young Crossjay flew out to her.
He hung and danced on her hand, pressed the hand to
his mouth, hardly believing that he saw and touched her,
and in a lingo of dashes and asterisks related how Sir
Willoughby had found him under the boathouse eaves
and pumped him, and had been sent off to Hoppner's
farm, where there was a sick child, and on along the road
to a labourer's cottage : ' For I said you 're so kind to
poor people. Miss Middleton ; that 's true, now that is
true. And I said you wouldn't have me with you for fear
of contagion !' This was what she had feared.

'Every crack and bang in a boy's vocabulary?' re-
marked the colonel, listening to him after he had paid
Flitch.

The latter touched his hat till he had drawn attention
to himself, when he exclained with rosy melancholy :
'Ah ! my lady, ah ! colonel, if ever I lives to drink some
of the old port wine in the old Hall at Christmastide !'
Their healths would on that occasion be drunk, it was
implied. He threw up his eyes at the windows, humped
his body and drove away.

'Then Mr. Whitford has not come back?' said Clara
to Crossjay.

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 47

'No, Miss Middleton. Sir Willoughby has, and he's
upstairs in his room dressing.'

' Have you seen Barclay ? '

'She has just gone into the laboratory. I told her Sir
Willoughby wasn't there.'

'Tell me, Crossjay, had she a letter?'

'She had something.'

'Run: say I am here; I want the letter, it is
mine.'

Crossjay sprang away and plunged into the arms of Sir
Willoughby.

' One has to catch the fellow like a football,' exclaimed
the injured gentleman, doubled across the boy and hold-
ing him fast, that he might have an object to trifle with,
to give himself countenance: he needed it. 'Clara, you
have not been exposed to the weather?'

'Hardly at all.'

'I rejoice. You found shelter?'

'Yes.'

'In one of the cottages?'

'Not in a cottage; but I was perfectly sheltered.
Colonel De Craye passed a fly before he met me . . .'

'Flitch again !' ejaculated the colonel.

'Yes, you have luck, you have luck,' Willoughby ad-
dressed him, stiU clutching Crossjay and treating his tugs
to get loose as an invitation to caresses. But the foil
barely concealed his livid perturbation.

'Stay by me, sir,' he said at last sharply to Crossjay,
and Clara touched the boy's shoulder in admonishment
of him.

She turned to the colonel as they stepped into the
hall : 'I have not thanked you, Colonel De Craye.' She
dropped her voice to its lowest: 'A letter in my hand-
writing in the laboratory.'

Crossjay cried aloud with pain.

48 THE EGOIST

'I have you !' Willoughby rallied him with a laugh not
unlike the squeak of his victim.

'You squeeze awfully hard, sir !'

'Why, you milksop !'

'Am I ! But I want to get a book.'

'Where is the book?'

'In the laboratory,'

Colonel De Craye, sauntering by the laboratory door,
sang out: 'I'll fetch you your book. What is it?
Eaelt Navigatoks? Infant Hymns? I think my
cigar-case is in here.'

'Barclay speaks of a letter for me,' Willoughby said to
Clara, 'marked to be delivered to me at noon !'

' In case of my not being back earUer : it was written
to avert anxiety,' she replied.

'You are very good.'

'Oh! good! Call me anything but good. Here are
the ladies. Dear ladies !' Clara swam to meet them as
they issued from a morning-room into the hall, and inter-
jections reigned for a couple of minutes.

Willoughby relinquished his grasp of Crossjay, who
darted instantaneously at an angle to the laboratory,
whither he followed, and he encountered De Craye coming
out, but passed him in silence.

Crossjay was rangeing and peering all over the room.
Willoughby went to his desk and the battery-table and
the mantelpiece. He found no letter. Barclay had un-
doubtedly informed him that she had left a letter for him
in the laboratory, by order of her mistress after breakfast.

He hurried out and ran upstairs in time to see De
Craye and Barclay breaking a conference.

He beckoned to her. The maid lengthened her upper
lip and beat her dress down smooth : signs of the appre-
hension of a crisis and of the getting ready for action.

'My mistress's bell has just rung, Sir Willoughby.'

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 49

'You had a letter for me.'

'I said . . .'

'You said when I met you at the foot of the stairs that
you had left a letter for me in the laboratory.'

'It is lying on my mistress's toilet-table.'

'Get it.'

Barclay swept round with another of her demure
grimaces. It was apparently necessary with her that she
should talk to herself in this public maimer.

Willoughby waited for her ; but there was no reappear-
ance of the maid.

Struck by the ridicule of his posture of expectation and
of his whole behaviour, he went to his bedroom suite, shut
himself ia and paced the chambers, amazed at the creature
he had become. Agitated like the commonest of wretches,
destitute of self-control, not able to preserve a decent
mask, he, accustomed to inflict these emotions and
tremours upon others, was at once the puppet and dupe
of an intrigmng girl. His very stature seemed lessened.
The glass did not say so, but the shrunken heart within
him did, and waUfully too. Her compunction — 'Call
me anything but good' — coming after her return to the
Hall beside De Craye, and after the visible passage of a
secret between them in his presence, was a confession :
it blew at him with the fury of a furnace-blast in his face.
Egoist agony wrung the outcry from him that dupery is
a more blest condition. He desired to be deceived.

He could desire such a thing only in a temporary trans-
port ; for above all he desired that no one should know of
his being deceived: and were he a dupe the deceiver
would know it, and her accomplice would know it, and
the world would soon know of it: that world against
whose tongue he stood defenceless. Within the shadow
of his presence he compressed opinion, as a strong frost
binds the springs of earth, but beyond it his shivering

50 THE EGOIST

sensitiveness ran about in dread of a stripping in a wintry
atmosphere. This was the ground of his hatred of the
world: it was an appalling fear on behalf of his naked
eidolon, the tender infant Self swaddled in his name before
the world, for which he felt as the most highly civilized
of men alone can feel, and which it was impossible for him
to stretch out hands to protect. There the poor little
loveable creature ran for any mouth to blow on; and
frost-nipped and bruised, it cried to him, and he was of
no avaU ! Must we not detest a world that so treats us ?
We loathe it the more, by the measure of our contempt
for them, when we have made the people within the
shadow-circle of our person slavish.

And he had been once a young Prince in popularity :
the world had been his possession. Clara's treatment of
him was a robbery of land and subjects. His grander
dream had been a marriage with a lady of so glowing a
fame for beauty and attachment to her lord that the world
perforce must take her for witness to merits which would
silence detraction and almost, not quite (it was undesire-
able), extinguish envy. But for the nature of women his
dream would have been realized. He could not bring
himself to denounce Fortune. It had cost him a grievous
pang to tell Horace De Craye he was lucky ; he had been
educated in the belief that Fortune specially prized
and cherished little Willoughby: hence of necessity his
maledictions fell upon women, or he would have forfeited
the last blanket of a dream warm as poets revel in.

But if Clara deceived him, he inspired her with timidity.
There was matter in that to make him wish to be de-
ceived. She had not looked him much in the face : she
had not crossed his eyes: she had looked deliberately
downward, keeping her head up, to preserve an exterior
pride. The attitude had its bewitchingness : the girl's
physical pride of stature scorning to bend under a load of

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 51

conscious guilt, had a certain black-angel beauty for which
he felt a hugging hatred: and according to his policy
when these fits of amorous meditation seized him, he burst
from the present one in the mood of his more favourable
conception of Clara, and sought her out.

The quality of the mood of hugging hatred is, that
if you are disallowed the hug, you do not hate the
fiercer.

Contrariwise the prescription of a decorous distance of
two feet ten inches, which is by measurement the delimi-
tation exacted of a rightly respectful deportment, has this
miraculous effect on the great creature man, or often it
has: that his peculiar hatred returns to the reluctant
admiration begetting it, and his passion for the hug falls
prostrate as one of the Faithful before the shrine : he is
reduced to worship by fasting.

(For these mysteries, consult the sublime chapter in the
Great Book, the Seventy-First on Love, wherein Nothing
is written, but the Reader receives a Lanthom, a Powder-
cask and a Pick-axe, and therewith pursues his yellow-
dusMng path across the rubble of preceding excavators in
the solitary quarry : a yet more instructive passage than
the over-scrawled Seventieth, or French Section, whence
the chapter opens, and where hitherto the polite world
has halted.)

The hurry of the hero is on us, we have no time to spare
for mining-works : he hurried to catch her alone, to wreak
his tortures on her in a bitter semblance of bodily worship,
and satiated, then comfortably to spurn. He found her
protected by Barclay on the stairs.

'That letter for me?' he said.

'I think I told you, Willoughby, there was a letter I
left with Barclay to reassure you in case of my not return-
ing early,' said Clara. 'It was unnecessary for her to
deliver it.'

52 THE EGOIST

'Indeed? But any letter, any writing, of yours, and
from you to me ! You have it still ?'

'No, I have destroyed it.'

'That was wrong.'

'It could not have given you pleasure.'

'My dear Clara, one line from you !'

'There were but three.'

Barclay stood sucking her lips. A maid in the secrets
of her mistress is a purchaseable maid, for if she will take
a bribe with her right hand she will with her left ; all that
has to be calculated is the nature and amount of the bribe :
such was the speculation indulged by Sir Willoughby, and
he shrank from the thought and declined to know more
than that he was on a volcanic hillside where a thin crust
quaked over lava. This was a new condition with him,
representing Clara's gain in their combat. Clara did not
fear his questioning so much as he feared her candour.

Mutually timid, they were of course formally polite, and
no plain-speaking could have told one another more dis-
tinctly that each was defensive. Clara stood pledged to
the fib ; packed, sealed and posted ; and he had only to
ask to have it, supposing that he asked with a voice not
exactly peremptory.

She said in her heart: 'It is your fault: you are
relentless, and you would ruin Crossjay to punish him
for devoting himself to me, like the poor thoughtless boy
he is ! and so I am bound in honour to do my utmost for
him.'

The reciprocal devotedness moreover served two pur-
poses : it preserved her from brooding on the humiliation
of her lame flight and flutter back, and it quieted her mind
in regard to the precipitate intimacy of her relations with
Colonel De Craye. Willoughby's boast of his implacable
character was to blame. She was at war with him, and
she was compelled to put the case in that light. Crossjay

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 53

must be shielded from one who could not spare an
offender, so Colonel De Craye quite naturally was called
on for his help, and the colonel's dexterous aid appeared
to her more admirable than alarming.

Nevertheless she would not have answered a direct
question falsely. She was for the fib, but not the lie ; at
a word she could be disdainful of subterfuges. Her look
said that. Willoughby perceived it. She had written
him a letter of three lines : 'There were but three' : and
she had destroyed the letter. Something perchance was
repented by her? Then she had done him an injury!
Between his wrath at the suspicion of an injury, and the
prudence enjoined by his abject coveting of her, he con-
sented to be fooled for the sake of vengeance, and some-
thing besides.

'Well ! here you are, safe : I have you !' said he, with
courtly exultation: 'and that is better than your hand-
writing. I have been all over the coimtry after you.'

'Why did you? We are not in a barbarous land,' said
Clara.

'Crossjay talks of your visiting a sick chUd, my love:
— you have changed your dress?'

'You see.*

'The boy declared you were going to that farm of
Hoppner's and some cottage. I met at my gates a
tramping vagabond who swore to seeing you and the boy
in a totally contrary direction.'

'Did you give him money?'

'I fancy so.'

'Then he was paid for having seen me.'

Willoughby tossed his head: it might be as she sug-
gested; beggars are liars.

'But who sheltered you, my dear Clara? You had not
been heard of at Hoppner's.'

'The people have been indemnified for their pains.

54 THE EGOIST

To pay them more would be to spoil them. You disperse
money too liberally. There was no fever in the place.
Who could have anticipated such a downpour ! I want to
consult Miss Dale on the important theme of a dress I
think of wearing at Mrs. Mountstuart's to-night.'

'Do. She is unerring.'

'She has excellent taste.'

'She dresses very simply herself.'

'But it becomes her. She is one of the few women
whom I feel I could not improve with a touch.'

'She has judgement.'

He reflected and repeated his encomium.

The shadow of a dimple in Clara's cheek awakened him
to the idea that she had struck him somewhere : and
certainly he would never again be able to put up the
fiction of her jealousy of Lsetitia. What, then, could be
this girl's motive for praying to be released? The
interrogation humbled him : he fled from the answer.

WUloughby went in search of De Craye. That sprightly
intriguer had no intention to let himself be caught solus.
He was imdiscoverable until the assembly sounded, when
Clara dropped a public word or two, and he spoke in per-
fect harmony with her. After that, he gave his company
to Willoughby for an hour at billiards, and was well
beaten.

The announcement of a visit of Mrs. Mountstuart
Jenkinson took the gentlemen to the drawing-room,
rather suspecting that something stood in the way of her
dinner-party. As it happened, she was lamenting only
the loss of one of the jewels of the party : to wit, the great
Professor Crooklyn, invited to meet Dr. Middleton at her
table ; and she related how she had driven to the station
by appointment, the professor being notoriously a bother-
headed traveller : as was shown by the fact that he had
missed his train in town, for he had not arrived ; nothing

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 55

had been seen of him. She cited Vernon Whitford for her
authority that the train had been inspected and the plat-
form scoured to find the professor.

'And so,' said she, 'I drove home your Green Man to
dry him; he was wet through and chattering; the man
was exactly like a skeleton wrapped in a sponge, and if he
escapes a cold he must be as invulnerable as he boasts
himself. These athletes are terrible boasters.'

'They climb their Alps to crow,' said Clara, excited by
her apprehension that Mrs. Mountstuart would speak of
having seen the colonel near the station.

There was a laugh, and Colonel De Craye laughed loudly
as it flashed through him that a quick-witted impression-
able girl like Miss Middleton must, before his arrival at
the Hall, have speculated on such obdurate clay as Vernon
Whitford was, with humourous despair at his uselessness
to her. Glancing round, he saw Vernon standing fixed in
a stare at the young lady.

'You heard that, Whitford?' he said, and Clara's face
betokening an extremer contrition than he thought was
demanded, the colonel rallied the Alpine climber for striv-
ing to be the tallest of them — Signor Excelsior! — and
described these conquerors of mountains pancaked on the
rocks in desperate embraces, bleached here, burnt there,
barked all over, all to be able to say they had been up 'so
high' — had conquered another mountain! He was ex-
travagantly funny and self-satisfied : a conqueror of the
sex having such different rewards of enterprise.

Vernon recovered in time to accept the absurdities
heaped on him.

'Climbing peaks won't compare with hunting a wrig-
gler,' said he.

His allusion to the incessant pursuit of young Crossjay
to pin him to lessons was appreciated.

Clara felt the thread of the look he cast from herself to

56 THE EGOIST

Colonel De Craye. She was helpless, if he chose to mis-
judge her. Colonel De Craye did not !

Crossjay had the misfortune to enter the drawing-room
while Mrs. Mountstuart was compassionating Vernon for
his ducking in pursuit of the wriggler; which De Craye
likened to 'going through the river after his eel': and
immediately there was a cross-questioning of the boy
between De Craye and Willoughby on the subject of his
latest truancy, each gentleman trjdng to run him down in
a palpable fib. They were succeeding brilliantly when
Vernon put a stop to it by marching him off to hard labour.
Mrs. Mountstuart was led away to inspect the beautiful
porcelain service, the present of Lady Busshe. 'Porcelain
again !' she said to Willoughby, and would have signalled
to the 'dainty rogue' to come with them, had not Clara
been leaning over to Laetitia, talking to her in an attitude
too graceful to be disturbed. She called his attention to
it, slightly wondering at his impatience. She departed to
meet an afternoon train on the chance that it would land
the professor. 'But tell Dr. Middleton,' said she, 'I fear
I shall have no one worthy of him ! And,' she added to
Willoughby, as she walked out to her carriage, 'I shall
expect you to do the great-gunnery talk at table.'

'Miss Dale keeps it up with him best,' said Willoughby.

'She does everything best! But my dinner-table is
involved, and I cannot count on a young woman to talk
across it. I would hire a lion of a menagerie, if one were
handy, rather than have a famous scholar at my table
unsupported by another famous scholar. Dr. Middleton
would ride down a duke when the wine is in him. He
will terrify my poor flock. The truth is, we can't leaven
him : I foresee undigested lumps of conversation, unless
you devote yourself.'

' I will devote myself,' said Willoughby.

'I can calculate on Colonel De Craye and our porcelain

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 57

beauty for any quantity of sparkles, if you promise that.
They play well together. You are not to be one of the
Gods to-night, but a kind of Jupiter's cupbearer ; — Juno's,
if you like : and Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer, and all
your admirers shall know subsequently what you have
done. You see my alarm. I certainly did not rank Pro-
fessor Crooklyn among the possibly faithless, or I never
would have ventured on Dr. Middleton at my table. My
dinner-parties have hitherto been all successes. Naturally
I feel the greater anxiety about this one. For a single
failure is all the more conspicuous. The exception is
everlastingly cited ! It is not so much what people say,
but my own sentiments. I hate to fail. However, if you
are true, we may do.'

'Whenever the great gun goes off I will fall on my
face, madam !'

'Something of that sort,' said the dame, smiling, and
leaving him to reflect on the egoism of women. For the
sake of her dinner-party he was to be a cipher in attend-
ance on Dr. Middleton, and Clara and De Craye were to be
encouraged in sparkling together ! And it happened that
he particularly wished to shine. The admiration of his
coimty made him believe he had a flavour in general society
that was not yet distinguished by his bride, and he was
to relinquish his opportunity in order to please Mrs.
Mountstuart ! Had she been in the pay of his rival she
could not have stipulated for more.

He remembered young Crossjay's instant quietude, after
struggling in his grasp, when Clara laid her hand on the
boy : and from that infinitesimal circumstance he deduced
the boy's perception of a differing between himself and his
bride, and a transfer of Crossjay's allegiance from him to
her. She shone ; she had the gift of female beauty ; the
boy was attracted to it. That boy must be made to feel
his treason. But the point of the cogitation was, that

58 THE EGOIST

similarly were Clara to see her affianced shining, as shine
he could when lit up by admirers, there was the proba-
bility that the sensation of her littleness would animate
her to take aim at him once more. And then was the
time for her chastisement.

A visit to Dr. Middleton in the library satisfied him that
she had not been renewing her entreaties to leave Pat-
teme. No, the miserable coquette had now her pastime
and was content to stay. Deceit was in the air : he heard
the sound of the shuttle of deceit without seeing it ; but
on the whole, mindful of what he had dreaded during the
hours of her absence, he was rather flattered, witheringly
flattered. What was it that he had dreaded? Nothing
less than news of her running away. Indeed a silly fancy,
a lover's fancy ! yet it had led him so far as to suspect,
after parting with De Craye in the rain, that his friend
and his bride were in collusion, and that he should not
see them again. He had actually shouted on the rainy
road the theatric call 'Fooled!' one of the stage-cries
which are cries of nature ! particularly the cry of nature
with men who have driven other men to the cry.

Constantia Durham had taught him to believe women
capable of explosions of treason at half a minute's notice.
And strangely, to prove that women are all of a pack, she
had worn exactly the same placidity of countenance just
before she fled, as Clara yesterday and to-day; no
nervousness, no flushes, no twitches of the brows, but
smoothness, ease of manner — an elegant sisterliness, one
might almost say : as if the creature had found a midway
and border-line to walk on between cruelty and kindness,
and between repulsion and attraction; so that up to the
verge of her breath she did forcefully attract, repelling at
one foot's length with her armour of chill serenity. Not
with any disdain, with no passion: such a line as she
herself pursued she indicated to him on a neighbouring

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 59

parallel. The passion in her was like a place of waves
evaporated to a crust of salt. Clara's resemblance to
Constantia in this instance was ominous. For him whose
tragic privilege it had been to fold each of them in his
arms, and weigh on their eyelids, and see the dissolving
mist-deeps in their eyes, it was horrible. Once more the
comparison overcame him. Constantia he could con-
demn for revealing too much to his manly sight : she had
met him almost half way : well, that was complimentary
and sanguine : but her frankness was a baldness often
rendering it doubtful which of the two, lady or gentleman,
was the object of the chase — an extreme perplexity to his
manly soul. Now Clara's inner spirit was shyer, shy as a
doe down those rose-tinged abysses ; she allured both the
lover and the hunter ; forests of heavenliness were in her
flitting eyes. Here the difference of these fair women
made his present fate an intolerable anguish. For if
Constantia was like certain of the ladies whom he had
rendered unhappy, triumphed over, as it is queerly
called, Clara was not. Her individuality as a woman
was a thing he had to bow to. It was impossible to roU
her up in the sex and bestow a kick on the travelling
bundle. Hence he loved her, though she hurt him.
Hence his wretchedness, and but for the hearty sincerity
of his faith in the Self he loved likewise and more, he
would have been hangdog abject.

As for De Craye, Willoughby recollected his own ex-
ploits too proudly to put his trust in a man. That fatal
conjunction of temper and policy had utterly thrown him
off his guard, or he would not have trusted the fellow
even in the first hour of his acquaintance with Clara. But
he had wished her to be amused while he wove his plans
to retain her at the Hall: — ^partly imagining that she
would weary of his neglect : vile delusion ! In truth he
should have given festivities, he should have been the sun

60 THE EGOIST

of a circle, and have revealed himself to her in his more
dazzling form. He went near to calling himself foolish
after the tremendous reverberation of 'Fooled!' had
ceased to shake him.

How behave? It slapped the poor gentleman's pride
in the face to ask. A private talk with her would rouse
her to renew her supplications. He saw them flickering
behind the girl's transparent calmness. That calmness
really drew its dead ivory hue from the suppression of
them: something as much he guessed; and he was not
sure either of his temper or his policy if he should hear her
repeat her profane request.

An impulse to address himself to Vernon and discourse
with him jocularly on the childish whim of a young lady,
moved perhaps by some whiff of jealousy, to shun the
yoke, was checked. He had always taken so superior a
pose with Vernon that he could not abandon it for a
moment : on such a subject too ! Besides Vernon was
one of your men who entertain the ideas about women of
fellows that have never conquered one : or only one, we
will say in his case, knowing his secret history ; and that
one no flag to boast of. Densely ignorant of the sex, his
nincompoopish idealizations, at other times preposterous,
would now be annoying. He would probably presume on
Clara's inconceivable lapse of dignity to read his master a
lecture : he was quite equal to a philippic upon woman's
rights. This man had not been afraid to say that he
talked common sense to women. He was an example of
the consequence I

Another result was, that Vernon did not talk sense to
men. Willoughby's wrath at Clara's exposure of him to
his cousin dismissed the proposal of a colloquy so likely
to sting his temper, and so certain to diminish his lofti-
ness. Unwilling to speak to anybody, he was isolated,
yet consciously begirt by the mysterious action going on

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 61

all over the house, from Clara and De Craye to Lsetitia
and young Crossjay, down to Barclay the maid. His
blind sensitiveness felt as we may suppose a spider to feel
when plucked from his own web and set in the centre of
another's. Lsetitia looked her share in the mystery. A
burden was on her eyelashes. How she could have come
to any suspicion of the circumstances, he was imable to
imagine. Her intense personal sympathy, it might be :
he thought so with some gentle pity for her — of the
paternal pat-back order of pity. She adored him, by
decree of Venus; and the Goddess had not decreed that
he should find consolation in adoring her. Nor could the
temptings of prudent counsel in his head induce him to
run the risk of such a total turnover as the incurring of
Lsetitia's pity of himself by confiding in her. He checked
that impulse also, and more sovereignly. For him to be
pitied by Lsetitia seemed an upsetting of the scheme of
Providence. Providence, otherwise the discriminating
dispensation of the good things of life, had made him the
beacon, her the bird : she was really the last person to
whom he could unbosom. The idea of his being in a
position that suggested his doing so, thrilled him with fits
of rage; and it appalled him. There appeared to be
another Power. The same which had humiliated him
once was menacing him anew. For it could not be Provi-
dence, whose favourite he had ever been. We must have
a couple of Powers to account for discomfort when Egoism
is the kernel of our religion. Benevolence had singled him
for uncommon benefits : malignancy was at work to rob
him of them. And you think well of the world, do you !
Of necessity he associated Clara with the darker Power
pointing the knife at the quick of his pride. Still, he
would have raised her weeping : he would have stanched
her wounds bleeding: he had an infinite thirst for her
misery, that he might ease her heart of its charitable love.

62 THE EGOIST

Or let her commit herself, and be cast off ! Only she must
commit herself glaringly, and be cast off by the world as
well. Contemplating her in the form of a discarded weed,
he had a catch of the breath : she was fair. He implored
his Power that Horace De Craye might not be the man !
Why any man? An illness, fever, fire, runaway horses,
personal disfigurement, a laming, were sufficient. And
then a formal and noble offer on his part to keep to the
engagement with the unhappy wreck: yes, and to lead
the limping thing to the altar, if she insisted. His
imagination conceived it, and the world's applause besides.

Nausea, together with a sense of duty to his line, extin-
guished that loathsome prospect of a mate, though with-
out obscuring his chivalrous devotion to his gentleman's
word of honour, which remained in his mind to compli-
ment him permanently.

- On the whole, he could reasonably hope to subdue her to
admiration. He drank a glass of champagne at his dress-
ing; an unaccustomed act, but, as he remarked casually
to his man Pollington, for whom the rest of the bottle was
left, he had taken no horse-exercise that day.

Having to speak to Vernon on business, he went to the
schoolroom, where he discovered Clara, beautiful in full
evening attire, with her arm on young Crossjay's shoulder,
and heard that the hard taskmaker had abjured Mrs.
Mountstuart's party, and had already excused himself,
intending to keep Crossjay to the grindstone. Willoughby
was for the boy, as usual, and more sparklingly than usual.
Clara looked at him in some surprise. He rallied Vernon
with great zest, quite silencing him when he said : ' I bear
witness that the fellow was here at his regular hour for
lessons, and were you?' He laid his hand on Crossjay,
touching Clara's hand.

'You will remember what I told you, Crossjay,' said
she, rising from the seat gracefullyn ' It is my command.'

BIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 63

Crossjay frowned and puffed.

' But only if I 'm questioned,' he said.

'Certainly,' she replied.

'Then I question the rascal,' said WUloughby, causing
a start. 'What, sir, is your opinion of Miss Middleton
in her robe of state this evening?'

'Now, the truth, Crossjay!' Clara held up a finger;
and the boy could see she was playing at archness, but for
WUloughby it was earnest. 'The truth is not likely to
offend you or me either,' he murmured to her.

' I wish him never, never, on any excuse, to speak any-
thing else.'

'I always did think her a Beauty,' Crossjay growled.
He hated the having to say it.

'There!' exclaimed Sir WDloughby, and bent extend-
ing an arm to her. ' You have not suffered from the truth,
my Clara!'

Her answer was : 'I was thinking how he might suffer
if he were taught to teU the reverse.'

'Oh! for a fair lady !'

'That is the worst of teaching, WUloughby.'

' We '11 leave it to the fellow's instinct ; he has our
blood in him. I could convince you, though, if I might
cite circumstances. Yes! But yes! And yes again!
The entire truth cannot invariably be told. I venture to
say it should not.'

'You would pardon it for the "fair lady"?*

'Applaud, my love.'

He squeezed the hand within his arm, contemplating
her.

She was arrayed in a voluminous robe of pale blue silk
vapourous with trimmings of light gauze of the same hue,
gaze de Chamb^ry, matching her fair hair and clear sMn
for the complete overthrow of less inflammable men than
WUloughby.

64 THE EGOIST

'Clara!' sighed he.

'If so, it would really be generous,' she said, 'though
the teaching is bad.'

'I fancy I can be generoiis.'

'Do we ever know?'

He turned his head to Vernon, issuing brief succinct
instructions for letters to be written, and drew her into
the hall, saying : ' Know ? There are people who do not
know themselves, and as they are the majority they
manufacture the axioms. And it is assumed that we have
to swallow them. I may observe that I think I know. I
decline to be engulphed in those majorities. "Among
them, but not of them." I know this, that my aim in life
is to be generous.'

'Is it not an impulse or disposition rather than an
aim?'

'So much I know,' pursued WUloughby, refusing to be
tripped. But she rang discordantly in his ear. His
'fancy that he could be generous,' and his 'aim at being
generous,' had met with no response. 'I have given
proofs,' he said briefly, to drop a subject upon which he
was not permitted to dilate ; and he murmured : 'People
acquainted with me . . . !' She was asked if she ex-
pected him to boast of generous deeds. 'From child-
hood!' she heard him mutter; and she said to herself:
'Release me, and you shall be everything!'

The unhappy gentleman ached as he talked : for with
men and with hosts of women to whom he was indifferent,
never did he converse in this shambling, third-rate,
sheepish manner, devoid of all highness of tone and the
proper precision of an authority. He was unable to
fathom the cause of it, but Clara imposed it on him, and
only in anger could he throw it off. The temptation to
an outburst that would flatter him with the sound of his
authoritative voice had to be resisted on a night when he

SIR WILLOUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 65

must be composed if he intended to shine, so he merely
mentioned Lady Busshe's present, to gratify spleen by
preparing the ground for dissension, and prudently
acquiesced in her anticipated slipperiness. She would
rather not look at it now, she said.

' Not now ; very well,' said he.

His immediate deference made her regretful. 'There
is hardly time, Willoughby.'

'My dear, we shall have to express our thanks to
her.'

'I cannot.'

His arm contracted sharply. He was obliged to be
silent.

Dr. Middleton, Lsetitia and the ladies Eleanor and Isabel
joining them in the hall found two figures linked together
in a shadowy indication of halves that have fallen apart
and hang on the last thread of junction. WDloughby
retained her hand on his arm ; he held to it as the symbol
of their alliance, and oppressed the girl's nerves by con-
tact with a frame labouring for breath. De Craye looked
on them from overhead. The carriages were at the door,
and WUloughby said: 'Where's Horace? I suppose
he 's taking a final shot at his Book of Anecdotes and neat
collection of Irishisms.'

'No,' replied the colonel, descending. 'That 's a spring
works of itself and has discovered the secret of continuous
motion, more 's the pity ! — unless you '11 be pleased to
make it of use to Science.'

He gave a laugh of good humour.

'Your laughter, Horace, is a capital comment on your
wit.'

Willoughby said it with the air of one who has flicked a
whip.

"Tis a genial advertisement of a vacancy,' said De
Craye.

66 THE EGOIST

'Precisely: three parts auctioneer to one for the
property.'

' Oh ! if you have a musical quack, score it a point in his
favour, Willoughby, though you don't swallow his drug.'

'If he means to be musical, let him keep time.'

'Am I late?' said De Craye to the ladies, proving
himself an adept in the art of being gracefully vanquished
and so winning tender hearts.

Willoughby had refreshed himself. At the back of his
mind there was a suspicion that his adversary would not
have yielded so flatly without an assurance of practically
triumphing, secretly getting the better of him; and it
filled him with venom for a further bout at the next oppor-
tunity : but as he had been sarcastic and mordant, he had
shown Clara what he could do in a way of speaking differ-
ent from the lamentable cooing stuff, gasps and feeble
protestations to which, he knew not how, she reduced him.
Sharing the opinion of his race, that blunt personalities,
or the pugilistic form, administered directly on the saUent
features, are exhibitions of mastery in such encounters,
he felt strong and solid, eager for the successes of the
evening. De Craye was in the first carriage as escort to
the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. Willoughby, with Clara,
Lsetitia and Dr. Middleton followed, all silent, for the
Rev. Doctor was ostensibly pondering ; and Willoughby
was damped a little when he unlocked his mouth to say :

'And yet I have not observed that Colonel De Craye is
anything of a Celtiberian Egnatius meriting fustigation
for an untimely display of well-whitened teeth, sir:
"quicquid est, ubicunque est, quodcunque agit, renidet" :
— ^ha? a morbus neither charming nor urbane to the
general eye, however consolatory to the actor. But this
gentleman does not offend so, or I am so strangely
prepossessed in his favour as to be an incompetent wit-
ness.'

SIR WILJ.OUGHBY RECEIVES INSTRUCTION 67

Dr. Middleton's persistent ha? eh? upon an honest
frown of inquiry plucked an answer out of Willoughby,
that was meant to be humourously scornful and soon
became apologetic under the Doctor's interrogatively
grasping gaze.

'These Irishmen,' Willoughby said, 'will play the
professional jester, as if it were an office they were bom
to. We must play critic now and then, otherwise we
should have them deluging us with their Joe Millerisms.'

'With their O'MUlerisms you would say, perhaps?'

Willoughby did his duty to the joke, but the Rev.
Doctor, though he wore the paternal smile of a man that
has begotten hilarity, was not perfectly propitiated, and
pursued: 'Nor to my apprehension is "the man's laugh
the comment on his wit" unchallengeably new : instances
of cousinship germane to the phrase will recur to you.
But it has to be noted that it was a phrase of assault ; it
was ostentatiously battery : and I would venture to
remind you, friend, that among the elect, considering that
it is as fatally facile to spring the laugh upon a man as to
deprive him of his life, considering that we have only to
condescend to the weapon, and that the more popular
necessarily the more murderous that weapon is, — among
the elect, to which it is your distinction to aspire to be-
long, the rule holds to abstain from any employment of
the obvious, the percoct, and likewise, for your own sake,
from the epitonic, the overstrained ; for if the former, by
readily assimilating with the understandings of your
audience are empowered to conamit assassination on your
victim, the latter come under the charge of unseemliness,
inasmuch as they are a description of public suicide.
Assuming, then, manslaughter to be your pastime, and
hari-kari not to be your bent, the phrase, to escape
criminality, must rise in you as you would have it to fall
onjiim, ex improviso. Am I right?'

68 THE EGOIST

'I am in the habit of thinking it impossible, sir, that
you can be in error,' said Willoughby.

Dr. Middleton left it the more emphatic by saying
nothing further.

Both his daughter and Miss Dale, who had disapproved
the waspish snap at Colonel De Craye, were in wonder-
ment of the art of speech which could so soothingly inform
a gentleman that his behaviour had not been gentlemanly.

Willoughby was damped by what he comprehended of it
for a few minutes. In proportion as he realized an even-
ing with his ancient admirers he was restored, and he
began to marvel greatly at his folly in not giving banquets
and Balls, instead of making a solitude about himself and
his bride. For solitude, thought he, is good for the man,
the man being a creature consumed by passion ; woman's
love, on the contrary, will only be nourished by the reflex
light she catches of you in the eyes of others, she having no
passion of her own, but simply an instinct driving her to
attach herself to whatsoever is most largely admired, most
shining. So thinking, he determined to change his course
of conduct, and he was happier. In the first gush of our
wisdom drawn directly from experience, there is a mental
intoxication that cancels the old world and establishes a
new one, not allowing us to ask whether it is too late.

CHAPTER XXX

TREATING OF THE DINNER-PARTY AT MRS.
MOUNTSTUART JENKINSOn'S

Vernon and young Crossjay had tolerably steady work
together for a couple of hours, varied by the arrival of a
plate of meat on a tray for the master, and some interro-

MRS. MOUNTSTUART'S DINNER-PARTY 69

gations put to him from time to time by the boy in refer-
ence to Miss Middleton. Crossjay made the discovery
that if he abstained from alluding to Miss Middleton's
beauty he might water his dusty path with her name
nearly as much as he liked. Mention of her beauty in-
curred a reprimand. On the first occasion his master was
wistful. 'Isn't she glorious!' Crossjay fancied he had
started a sovereign receipt for blessed deviations. He
tried it again, but psedagogue-thimder broke over his
head.

'Yes, only I can't understand what she means, Mr.
Whitford,' he excused himself. 'First I was not to
tell ; I know I wasn't, because she said so ; she quite as
good as said so. Her last words were, "Mind, Crossjay,
you know nothing about me," when I stuck to that beast
of a tramp, who 's a "walking moral," and gets money out
of people by snuffling it.'

'Attend to your lesson, or you '11 be one,' said Vernon.

'Yes, but, Mr. Whitford, now I am to tell. I 'm to
answer straight out to every question.'

'Miss Middleton is anxious that you should be truth-
ful.'

' Yes, but in the morning she told me not to tell.'

' She was in a hurry. She has it on her conscience that
you may have misunderstood her, and she wishes you
never to be guilty of an untruth, least of all on her
accoimt.'

Crossjay committed an unspoken resolution to the air
in a violent sigh : ' Ah !' and said : 'If I were sure !'

' Do as she bids you, my boy.'

'But I don't know what it is she wants.'

'Hold to her last words to you.'

'So I do. If she told me to run till I dropped, on I 'd

go.'
.'She told you to study your lessons : do that.'

70 THE EGOIST

Crossjay buckled to his book, invigorated by an ima-
gination of his Hege lady on the page.

After a studious interval, until the impression of his
lady had subsided, he resumed : ' She 's so funny ! She 's
just Uke a girl, and then she 's a lady too. She 's my
idea of a princess. And Colonel De Craye ! Wasn't he
taught dancing! When he says something funny he
ducks and seems to be setting to his partner. I should
like to be as clever as her father. That is a clever man !
I daresay Colonel De Craye will dance with her to-night.
I wish I was there.'

'It 's a dinner-party, not a dance,' Vernon forced him-
self to say, to dispel that ugly vision.

'Isn't it, sir? I thought they danced after dirmer-
parties. Mr. Whitford, have you ever seen her run?'

Vernon pointed him to his task.

They were silent for a lengthened period.

'But does Miss Middleton mean me to speak out if Sir
Willoughby asks me ? ' said Crossjay.

' Certainly. You needn't make much of it. All 's
plain and simple.'

'But I 'm positive, Mr. Whitford, he wasn't to hear of
her going to the post-oflBce with me before breakfast.
And how did Colonel De Craye find her and bring her
back, with that old Flitch ? He 's a man and can go
where he pleases, and I 'd have found her too, give me the
chance. You know, I 'm fond of Miss Dale, but she —
I 'm very fond of her — but you can't think she 's a girl as
well. And about Miss Dale, when she says a thing, there
it is, clear. But Miss Middleton has a lot of meanings.
Never mind ; I go by what 's inside and I 'm pretty
sure to please her.'

'Take your chin off your hand and your elbow off the
book, and fix yourself,' said Vernon, wrestling with the
seduction of Crossjay's idolatry, for Miss Middleton's

MRS. MOUNTSTUART'S DINNER-PARTY 71

appearance had been pretematurally sweet on her de-
parture, and the next pleasure to seeing her was hearing
of her from the lips of this passionate young poet.

'Remember that you please her by speaking truth/
Vernon added, and laid himself open to questions upon
the truth, by which he learnt, with a perplexed sense of
envy and sjmipathy, that the boy's idea of truth strongly
approximated to his conception of what should be agree-
able to Miss Middleton.

He was lonely, bereft of the bard, when he had tucked
Crossjay up in his bed and left him. Books he could not
read; thoughts were disturbiag. A seat in the library
and a stupid stare helped to pass the hours, and but for
the spot of sadness moving meditation in spite of his effort
to stun himself, he would have borne a happy resemblance
to an idiot in the sun. He had verily no command of his
reason. She was too beautiful ! Whatever she did was
best. That was the refrain of the fountain-song in him;
the burden being her whims, variations, inconsistencies,
wiles; her tremblings between good and naughty, that
might be stamped to noble or to terrible; her sincere-
ness, her duplicity, her courage, cowardice, possibilities
for heroism and for treachery. By dint of dwelling on
the theme, he magnified the young lady to extraordinary
stature. And he had sense enough to own that her char-
acter was yet liquid in the mould, and that she was a
creature of only naturally youthful wildness provoked
to freaMshness by the ordeal of a situation shrewd as any
that can happen to her sex in civilized life. But he was
compelled to think of her extravagantly, and he leaned
a little to the discrediting of her, because her actual image
unmanned him and was unbearable : and to say at the
end of it ' She is too beautiful ! whatever she does is
best,' smoothed away the wrong he did her. Had it been
in his power he would have thought of her in the abstract

72 THE EGOIST

— the stage contiguous to that which he adopted: but
the attempt was luckless; the Stagyrite would have
failed in it. What philosopher could have set down that
face of sun and breeze and nymph in shadow as a point
in a problem?

The library-door was opened at midnight by Miss Dale.
She closed it quietly. 'You are not working, Mr. Whit-
ford? I fancied you would wish to hear of the evening.
Professor Crooklyn arrived after all ! Mrs. Mount-
stuart is bewildered : she says she expected you, and
that you did not excuse yourself to her, and she cannot
comprehend, et csetera. That is to say, she chooses
bewilderment to indulge in the exclamatory. She must
be very much annoyed. The professor did come by the
train she drove to meet !'

'I thought it probable,' said Vernon.

'He had to remain a couple of hours at the Railway
Inn : no conveyance was to be found for him. He thinks
he has caught a cold, and cannot stifle his fretfulness
about it. He may be as learned as Dr. Middleton; he
has not the same happy constitution. Nothing more
unfortunate could have occurred; he spoilt the party.
Mrs. Mountstuart tried petting him, which drew attention
to him and put us all in his key for several awkward
minutes, more than once. She lost her head; she was
unlike herself. I may be presumptuous in criticizing
her, but should not the president of a dinner-table treat
it like a battle-field, and let the guest that sinks descend,
and not allow the voice of a discordant, however illus-
trious, to rule it? Of course, it is when I see failures
that I fancy I could manage so well : comparison is
prudently reserved in the other cases. I am a daring
critic, no doubt because I know I shall never be tried by
experiment. I have no ambition to be tried.'

She did not notice a smile of Vernon's, and continued :

MRS. MOUNTSTUART'S DINNER-PARTY 73

'Mrs. Mountstuart gave him the lead upon any subject
he chose. I thought the Professor never would have
ceased talking of a young lady who had been at the inn
before him drinking hot brandy and water with a gentle-
man!'

'How did he hear of that?' cried Vernon, roused by
the malignity of the Fates.

'From the landlady, trying to comfort him. And a
story of her lending shoes and stockings while those of
the young lady were drying. He has the dreadful
snappish humourous way of recounting which impresses
it; the table took up the subject of this remarkable
young lady, and whether she was a lady of the neighbour-
hood, and who she could be that went abroad on foot in
heavy rain. It was painful to me ; I knew enough to be
sure of who she was.'

'Did she betray it?'

'No.'

'Did Willoughby look at her?'

'Without suspicion then.'

'Then?'

'Colonel De Craye was diverting us, and he was very
amusing. Mrs. Mountstuart told him afterwards that
he ought to be paid salvage for saving the wreck of her
party. Sir Willoughby was a little too cynical : he talked
well; what he said was good, but it was not good-
humoured : he has not the reckless indifference of Colonel
De Craye to uttering nonsense that amusement may come
of it. And in the drawing-room he lost such gaiety as
he had. I was close to Mrs. Mountstuart when Professor
Crooklyn approached her and spoke in my hearing of
that gentleman and that young lady. They were, you
could see by his nods, Colonel De Craye and Miss
Middleton.'

'And she at once mentioned it to Willoughby !'

74 THE EGOIST

' Colonel De Craye gave her no chance, if she sought it.
He courted her profusely. Behind his rattle he must
have brains. It ran in all directions to entertain her and
her circle.'

'Willoughby knows nothing?'

'I cannot judge. He stood with Mrs. Mountstuart a
minute as we were taking leave. She looked strange. I
heard her say, "The rogue." He laughed. She lifted her
shoulders. He scarcely opened his mouth on the way
home.'

'The thing must run its course,' Vernon said, with the
philosophical air which is desperation rendered decorous.
'Willoughby deserves it. A man of full growth ought to
know that nothing on earth tempts Providence so much
as the binding of a young woman against her will. Those
two are mutually attracted : they 're both . . . They
meet and the mischief 's done : both are bright. He can
persuade with a word. Another might discourse like an
angel and it would be useless. I said everything I could
think of, to no purpose. And so it is: there are those
attractions ! — ^just as, with her, Willoughby is the re-
verse, he repels. I 'm in about the same predicament —
or should be if she were plighted to me. That is, for
the length of five minutes; about the space of time I
should require for the formality of handing her back her
freedom. How a sane man can imagine a girl like that
. . . ! But if she has changed, she has changed ! You
can't conciliate a withered affection. This detaining her,
and tricking, and not listening, only increases her aver-
sion; she learns the art in turn. Here she is, detained
by fresh plots to keep Dr. Middleton at the Hall. That 's
true, is it not?' He saw that it was. 'No, she 's not to
blame! She has told him her mind; he won't listen.
The question then is, whether she keeps to her word, or
breaks it. It 's a dispute between a conventional idea

MRS. MOUNTSTUART'S DINNER-PARTY 75

of obligation and an injury to her nature. Which is the
more dishonourable thing to- do ? Why, you and I see
in a moment that her feelings guide her best. It 's one
of the few cases in which nature may be consulted like
an oracle.'

'Is she so sure of her nature?' said Miss Dale.

'You may doubt it; I do not. I am surprised at her
coming back. De Craye is a man of the world, and ad-
vised it, I suppose. He ^well, I never had the per-
suasive tongue, and my failing doesn't count for much.'

'But the suddenness of the intimacy !'

'The disaster is rather famous "at first sight." He
came in a fortunate hour ... for him. A pigmy 's a
giant if he can manage to arrive in season. Did you not
notice that there was danger, at their second or third
glance? You counselled me to hang on here, where the
amount of good I do in proportion to what I have to
endure is microscopic'

'It was against your wishes, I know,' said Lsetitia, and
when the words were out she feared that they were
tentative. Her delicacy shrank from even seeming to
sound him in relation to a situation so delicate as Miss
Middleton's.

The same sentiment guarded him from betraying him-
self, and he said: 'Partly against. We both foresaw
the possible — ^because, like most prophets, we knew a
little more of circumstances enabling us to see the fatal.
A pigmy would have served, but De Craye is a handsome,
intelligent, pleasant fellow.'

'Sir Willoughby's friend !'

' Well, in these affairs ! A great deal must be charged
on the Goddess.'

'That is really Pagan fatalism !'

'Our modem word for it is Nature. Science conde-
scends to speak of natural selection. Look at these !

76 THE EGOIST

They are both graceful and winning and witty, bright
to mind and eye, made for one another, as country people
say. I can't blame him. Besides we don't know that
he 's guilty. We 're quite in the dark, except that we 're
certain how it must end. If the chance should occur to
you of giving Willoughby a word of counsel — ^it may —
you might, without irritating him as my knowledge of
his plight does, hint at your eyes being open. His insane
dread of a detective world makes him artificially blind.
As soon as he fancies himself seen, he sets to work spin-
ning a web, and he discerns nothing else. It 's generally
a clever kind of web ; but if it 's a tangle to others it 's the
same to him, and a veil as well. He is preparing the
catastrophe, he forces the issue. Tell him of her extreme
desire to depart. Treat her as mad, to soothe him.
Otherwise one morning he will wake a second time . . . !
It is perfectly certain. And the second time it will be
entirely his own fault. Inspire him with some philos-
ophy.'

'I have none.'

'If I thought so, I would say you have better. There
are two kinds of philosophy, mine and yours. Mine
comes of coldness, yours of devotion.'

'He is unlikely to choose me for his confidante.'

Vernon meditated. 'One can never quite guess what
he will do, from never knowing the heat of the centre in
him which precipitates his actions : he has a great art
of concealment. As to me, as you perceive, my views
are too philosophical to let me be of use to any of them.
I blame only the one who holds to the bond. The sooner
I am gone ! — ^in fact, I cannot stay on. So Dr. Middleton
and the Professor did not strike fire together?'

'Dr. Middleton was ready and pursued him, but
Professor Crooklyn insisted on shivering. His line of
blank verse: "A Railway platform and a Railway

MRS. MOUNTSTUART'S DINNER-PARTY 77

inn!" became pathetic in repetition. He must have
suffered.'

'Somebody has to !'

'Why the innocent?'

'He arrives k propos. But remember that Fridolin
sometimes contrives to escape and have the guilty
scorched. The Professor would not have suffered if he
had missed his train, as he appears to be in the habit of
doing. Thus his imaccustomed good fortune was the
cause of his bad.'

'You saw him on the platform?'

'I am unacquainted with the Professor. I had to get
Mrs. Mountstuart out of the way.'

'She says she described him to you. "Complexion
of a sweetbread, consistency of a quenelle, grey, and like
a Saint without his dish behind the head." '

' Her descriptions are strikingly accurate, but she forgot
to sketch his back, and all that I saw was a narrow sloping
back and a broad hat resting the brim on it. My report
to her spoke of an old gentleman of dark complexion, as
the only traveller on the platform. She has faith in the
efficiency of her descriptive powers, and so she was willing
to drive off immediately. — The intention was a start to
London. Colonel De Craye came up and effected in five
minutes what I could not compass in thirty.'

'But you saw Colonel De Craye pass you?'

'My work was done; I should have been an intruder.
Besides I was acting wet jacket with Mrs. Mountstuart to
get her to drive off fast, or she might have jumped out
in search of her Professor herself.'

'She says you were lean as a jfork, with the wind
whistling through the prongs.'

'You see how easy it is to deceive one who is an artist
in phrases. Avoid them. Miss Dale; they dazzle the
.penetration of the composer. That is why people of

78 THE EGOIST

ability like Mrs. Mountstuart see so little; they are so
bent on describing brilliantly. However, she is kind and
charitable at heart. I have been considering to-night
that, to cut this knot as it is now. Miss Middleton might
do worse than speak straight out to Mrs. Mountstuart.
No one else would have such influence with Willoughby.
The simple fact of Mrs. Mountstuart's knowing of it
would be almost enough. But courage would be re-
quired for that. Good night. Miss Dale.'

'Good night, Mr. Whitford. You pardon me for
disturbing you?'

Vernon pressed her hand reassuringly. He had but to
look at her and review her history to think his cousin
Willoughby punished by just retribution. Indeed for
any maltreatment of the dear boy Love by man or by
woman, coming under your cognizance, you, if you be
of common soundness, shall behold the retributive blow
struck in your time.

Miss Dale retired thinking how like she and Vernon
were to one another in the toneless condition they had
achieved through sorrow. He succeeded in masking
himself from her, owing to her awe of the circumstances.
She reproached herself for not having the same devotion
to the cold idea of duty as he had; and though it
provoked inquiry, she would not stop to ask why
he had left Miss Middleton a prey to the sparkling
colonel. It seemed a proof of the philosophy he
preached.

As she was passing by young Crossjay's bedroom-door a
face appeared. Sir Willoughby slowly emerged and pre-
sented himself in his full length, beseeching her to banish
alarm.

He said it in a hushed voice, with a face qualified to
create the sentiment.

'Are you tired? sleepy?' said he.

SIR WILLOUGHBY ACHIEVES PATHOS 79

She protested that she was not; she mtended to read
for an hour.

He begged to have the hour dedicated to him. 'I shall
be reUeved by conversing with a friend.'

No subterfuge crossed her mind ; she thought his mid-
night visit to the boy's bedside a pretty feature in him;
she was full of pity too; she yielded to the strange re-
quest^ feeling that it did not become 'an old woman* to
attach importance even to the public discovery of mid-
night interviews involving herself as one, and feeluig also
that she was being treated as an old friend in the form
of a very old woman. Her mind was bent on arresting
any recurrence to the project she had so frequently out-
lined in the tongue of innuendo, of which, because of her
repeated tremblings under it, she thought him a master.

He conducted her along the corridor to the private
sitting-room of the ladies Eleanor and Isabel.

'Deceit!' he said, while lighting the candles on the
mantelpiece.

She was earnestly compassionate, and a word that could
not relate to her personal destinies refreshed her by dis-
placing her apprehensive antagonism and giving pity
free play.

CHAPTER XXXI

SIR WILLOUGHBY ATTEMPTS AND ACHIEVES PATHOS

Both were seated. Apparently he would have preferred
to watch her dark downcast eyelashes in silence under
sanction of his air of abstract meditation and the melan-
choly superinducing it. Blood-colour was in her cheeks ;
the party had inspirited her features. Might it be that
lively company, an absence of economical solicitudes

80 THE EGOIST

and a flourishing home were all she required to make her
bloom again? The supposition was not hazardous in
presence of her heightened complexion.

She raised her eyes. He could not meet her look with-
out speaking.

'Can you forgive deceit?'

' It would be to boast of more charity than I know my-
self to possess, were I to say that I can, Sir WiUoughby.
I hope I am able to forgive. I cannot tell. I should like
to say yes.'

'Could you live with the deceiver?'

'No.'

'No. I could have given that answer for you. No
semblance of union should be maintained between the
deceiver and ourselves. Lsetitia !'

'Sir Willoughby?'

'Have I no right to your name?'

'If it please you to . . .'

'I speak as my thoughts run, and they did not know a
Miss Dale so well as a dear Lsetitia : my truest friend !
You have talked with Clara Middleton?'

'We had a conversation.'

Her brevity affrighted him. He flew off in a cloud.

'Reverting to that question of deceivers: is it not
your opinion that to pardon, to condone, is to corrupt
society by passing off as pure what is false ? Do we not,'
he wore the smile of haggard playfulness of a convalescent
child the first day back to its toys, 'Lsetitia, do we not
impose a counterfeit on the currency?'

'Supposing it to be really deception.'

'Apart from my loathing of deception, of falseness in
any shape, upon any grounds, I hold it an imperious duty
to expose, punish, off with it. I take it to be one of the
forms of noxiousness which a good citizen is bound to
extirpate. I am not myself good citizen enough, I

SIR WILLOUGHBY ACHIEVES PATHOS 81

confess, for much more than passive abhorrence. I do not
forgive: I am at heart serious and I cannot forgive: —
there is no possible reconciliation, there can be only an
ostensible truce, between the two hostile powers dividing
this world.'

She glanced at him quickly,

'Good and evil !' he said.

Her face expressed a surprise relapsing on the heart.

He felt the puckers of her forehead to mean, that she
feared he might be speaking unchristianly.

'You wiU find it so in all religions, my dear Lsetitia:
the Hindoo, the Persian, ours. It is universal; an ex-
perience of our humanity. Deceit and siacerity cannot
live together. Truth must kill the lie, or the lie will kill
truth. I do not forgive. All I say to the person is, go !'

'But that is right! that is generous!' exclaimed
Laetitia, glad to approve him for the sake of blinding her
critical soul, and relieved by the idea of Clara's diflBlciilty
solved.

'Capable of generosity perhaps,' he mused aloud.

She wounded him by not supplying the expected en-
thusiastic asseveration of her belief in his general tendency
to magnanimity.

He said after a pause: 'But the world is not likely
to be impressed by anything not immediately gratifying
it. People change, I find: as we increase in years we
cease to be the heroes we were ! I myself am insensible
to change : I do not admit the charge. Except in this,
we will say : personal ambition. I have it no more.
And what is it when we have it? Decidedly a con-
fession of inferiority! That is, the desire to be dis-
tinguished is an acknowledgement of insufficiency. But
-iE-faave- stil l the cr ajdng-ior in.Y.jgar^ t friends ta ..think"~-
well of me, Ajseakeess? ' Calt it so; ~^ota_dishonour-
able weakness !'

82 THE EGOIST

Lsetitia racked her brain for the connection of his
present speech with the preceding dialogue. She was
baffled, from not knowing 'the heat of the centre in him'
as Vernon opaquely phrased it in charity to the object of
her worship.

'Well,' said he, unappeased, 'and besides the passion
to excel, I have changed somewhat in the heartiness of
my thirst for the amusements incident to my station.
I do not care to keep a stud — I was once tempted : nor
hounds. And I can remember the day when I determined
to have the best kennels and the best breed of horses in
the kingdom. Puerile ! What is distinction of that
sort, or of any acquisition and accomplishment? We
ask ! One's self is not the greater. To seek it, owns to
our smallness, in real fact ; and when it is attained, what
then? My horses are good, they are admired, I challenge
the county to surpass them: well? These are but my
horses ; the praise is of the animals, not of me. I decline
to share in it. Yet I know men content to swallow the
praise of their beasts and be semi-equine. The littleness
of one's fellows in the mob of life is a very strange ex-
perience ! One may regret to have lost the simplicity of
one's forefathers, which could accept those and other
distinctions with a cordial pleasure, not to say pride.
As for instance, I am, as it is called, a dead shot. " Give
your acclamations, gentlemen, to my ancestors, from
whom I inherited a steady hand and quick sight." They
do not touch me. Where I do not find myself — that I
am essentially I — ^no applause can move me. To speak
to you as I would speak to none, admiration — you know
that in my early youth I swam in flattery — ^I had to swim
to avoid drowning! — admiration of my personal gifts
has grown tasteless. Changed, therefore, inasmuch as
there has been a growth of spirituality. We are all in
submission to mortal laws, and so far I have indeed

SIR WILLOUGHBY ACHIEVES PATHOS 83

changed. I may add that it is unusual for country gentle-
men to apply themselves to scientific researches. These
are, however, in the spirit of the time. I apprehended
that instinctively when at College. I forsook the classics
for science. And thereby escaped the vice of domineer-
ing self-sufficiency peculiar to classical men, of which
you had an amusing example in the carriage, on the way
to Mrs. Mountstuart's this evening. Science is modest;
slow, if you like : it deals with facts, and having mastered
them, it masters men; of necessity, not with a stupid
loud-mouthed arrogance: words big and oddly-garbed
as the Pope's body-guard ! Of course, one bows to the
Infallible; we must, when his giant-mercenaries level
bayonets !'

Sir WiUoughby offered Miss Dale half a minute that
she might in gentle feminine fashion acquiesce in the im-
plied reproof of Dr. Middleton's behaviour to him during
the drive to Mrs. Mountstuart's. She did not.

Her heart was accusing Clara of having done it a wrong
and a hurt. For while he talked he seemed to her to
justify Clara's feelings and her conduct: and her own
reawakened sensations of injury came to the surface a
moment to look at him, affirming that they pardoned him,
and pitied, but hardly wondered.

The heat of the centre in him had administered the
comfort he wanted, though the conclusive accordant
notes he loved on woman's lips, that subservient har-
mony of another instnmient desired of musicians when
they have done their solo-playing, came not to wind up
the performance : not a single bar. She did not speak.
Probably his Lsetitia was overcome, as he had long
known her to be when they conversed; nerve-subdued,
unable to deploy her mental resources or her musical.
Yet ordinarily she had command of the latter. — ^Was she
too condoling? Did a reason exist for it? Had the

84 THE EGOIST

impulsive and desperate girl spoken out to Lsetitia to the
fullest? — shameless daughter of a domineering sire that
she was ! Ghastlier inquiry (it struck the centre of him
with a sounding ring), was Lsetitia pitying him overmuch
for worse than the pain of a little difference between
lovers — ^for treason on the part of his bride? Did she
know of a rival ? know more than he ?

When the centre of him was violently struck he was a
genius in penetration. He guessed that she did know:
and by this was he presently helped to achieve pathos.

'So my election was for Science,' he continued: 'and
if it makes me, as I fear, a rara avis among country
gentlemen, it unites me, puts me in the main, I may say,
in the only current of progress — a word sufficiently des-
picable in their political jargon. — ^You enjoyed your
evening at Mrs. Moimtstuart's ? '

'Very greatly.'

'She brings her professor to dine here the day after
to-morrow. Does it astonish you ? You started.' ■ .

*I did not hear the invitation.'

'It was arranged at the table: you and I were sepa-
rated — cruelly, I told her: she declared that we see
enough of one another, and that it was good for me that
we, should be separated ; neither of which is true. I
may not have known what is the best for me : I do know
what is good. If in my younger days I egregiously erred,
that, taken of itself alone, is, assuming me to have sense
and feeling, the surer proof of present wisdom. I can
testify in person that wisdom is pain. If pain is to add to
wisdom, let me suffer ! Do you approve of that, Lsetitia ? '

'It is well said.'

'It is felt. Those who themselves have suffered should
know the benefit of the resolution.'

'One may have suffered so much as to wish only for
peace.'

SIR WILLOUGHBY ACHIEVES PATHOS 85

'True: but you! have you?'

'It would be for peace, if I prayed for an earthly gift.'

Sir WUloughby dropped a snule on her. 'I mentioned
the Pope's parti-coloured body-guard just now. In my
youth their singular attire impressed me. People tell me
they have been re-uniformed : I am sorry. They remain
one of my liveliest recollections of the Eternal City. They
affected my sense of humour, always alert in me, aS' you
are aware. We English have hmnour. It is the first
thing struck in us when we land on the Continent : our
risible faculties are generally active all through the tour.
Humour, or the clash of sense with novel examples of the
absurd, is our characteristic. I do not condescend to
boisterous displays of it. I observe, and note the people's
comicalities for my correspondence. But you have read
my letters — most of them, if not all?'

'Many of them.'

'I was with you then! — I was about to say — ^that
Swiss-guard reminded me — you have not been in Italy.
I have constantly regretted it. You are the very woman,
you have the soul for Italy. I know no other of whom
I could say it, with whom I should not feel that she was
out of place, discordant with me. Italy and Lsetitia!
often have I joined you together. We shall see. I begin
to have hopes. Here you have literally stagnated. Why,
a dinner-party refreshes you! What would not travel
do, and that heavenly climate! You are a reader of
history and poetry. Well, poetry ! I never yet saw the
poetry that expressed the tenth part of what I feel in
the presence of beauty and magnificence, and when I
really meditate — ^profoundly. Call me a positive mind.
I feel: only I feel too intensely for poetry. By the
nature of it, poetry cannot be sincere. I will have sin-
cerity. Whatever touches our emotions should be spon-
taneous, not a craft. I know you are in favour of poetry.

86 THE EGOIST

You would win me, if any one could. But history!
there I am with you. Walking over ruins : at night :
the arches of the solemn black amphitheatre pouring
moonlight on us — ^the moonlight of Italy !'

'You would not laugh there, Sir Willoughby?' said
Lsetitia, rousing herself from a stupor of apprehensive
amazement, to utter something and realize actual circum-
stances.

'Besides, you, I think, or I am mistaken in you '

he deviated from his projected speech — 'you are not a
victim of the sense of association, and the ludicrous.'

'I can understand the influence of it : I have at least
a conception of the hiunourous : but ridicule would not
strike me in the Coliseum of Rome. I could not bear it,
no. Sir Willoughby!'

She appeared to be taking him in very strong earnest,
by thus petitioning him not to laugh in the Coliseum, and
now he said : ' Besides, you are one who could accommo-
date yourself to the society of the ladies, my aunts.
Good women, Lsetitia! I cannot imagine them de trop
in Italy, or in a household. I have of course reason to
be partial in my judgement.'

'They are excellent and most amiable ladies; I love
them,' said Lsetitia fervently ; the more strongly excited
to fervour by her enlightenment as to his drift.

She read it, that he designed to take her to Italy with
the ladies; — after giving Miss Middleton her liberty;
that was necessarily irnplied. And that was truly gener-
ous. In his boyhood he had been famous for his bounti-
fulness in scattering silver and gold. Might he not have
caused himself to be misperused in later life?

Clara had spoken to her of the visit and mission of the
ladies to the library : and Lsetitia daringly conceived her-
self to be on the certain track of his meaning, she being
able to enjoy their society as she supposed him to

SIR WILLOUGHBY ACHIEVES PATHOS 87

consider that Miss Middleton did not, and would not
either abroad or at home.

Sir WUloughby asked her: 'You could travel with
them?'

'Indeed I could!'

'Honestly?'

'As affirmatively as one may protest. Delightedly.'

'Agreed. It is an undertaking.' He put his hand
out. 'Whether I be of the party or not! To Italy,
Lsetitia ! It would give me pleasure to be with you, and
it will, if I must be excluded, to think of you in Italy !'

His hand was out. She had to feign inattention or
yield her own. She had not the effrontery to pretend not
to see, and she yielded it. He pressed it, and whenever
it shrank a quarter-inch to withdraw, he shook it up and
down, as an instrument that had been lent him for due
emphasis to his remarks. And very emphatic an amorous
orator can make it upon a captive lady.

'I am unable to speak decisively on that or any subject.
I am, I think you once quoted, "tossed like a weed on
the ocean." Of myself I can speak : I cannot speak for
a second person. I am infinitely harassed. If I could
cry, "To Italy to-morrow!" Ah! ... Do not set
me down for complaining. I know the lot of man. But
Lsetitia, deceit ! deceit ! It is a bad taste in the mouth.
It sickens us of humanity. . I compare it to an earth-
quake : we lose all our reliance on the solidity of the
world. It is a betrayal not simply of the person ; it is a
betrayal of humankind. My friend ! Constant friend !
No, I will not despair. Yes, I have faults; I will re-
member them. Only, forgiveness is another question.
Yes, -the injury I can forgive : the falseness never. In
the interests of humanity, no! So young, and such
deceit!'
. Lffititia's bosom rose : her hand was detained : a lady

88 THE EGOIST

who has yielded it cannot wrestle to have it back : those
outworks which protect her, treacherously shelter the
enemy aiming at the citadel when he has taken them.
In return for the sUken armour bestowed on her by our
civilization, it is exacted that she be soft and civil nigh
up to perishing-point. She breathed tremulously high,
sayiug on her top-breath: 'If it — ^it may not be so; it
can scarcely . . .' A deep sigh intervened. It sad-
dened her that she knew so much.

'For when I love, I love,' said Sir WUloughby; 'my
friends and my servants know that. There can be no
medium : not with me. I give all, I claim all. As I am
absorbed, so must I absorb. We both cancel and create,
we extinguish and we illumine one another. The error
may be in the choice of an object : it is not in the passion.
Perfect confidence, perfect abandonment. I repeat, I
claim it because I give it. The selfishness of love may
be denounced : it is a part of us ! My answer would be,
it is an element only of the noblest of us ! Love, Laetitia !
I speak of love. But one who breaks faith to drag us
through the mire, who betrays, betrays and hands us over
to the world ; whose prey we become identically because of
virtues we were educated to think it a blessing to possess :
tell me the name for that ! — Again : it has ever been a
principle with me to respect the sex. But if we see
women false, treacherous. . . . Why indulge in these
abstract views, you would ask ! The world presses them
on us, full as it is of the vilest specimens. They seek to
pluck up every rooted principle: they sneer at our
worship: they rob us of our religion. This bitter ex-
perience of the world drives us back to the antidote of
what we knew before we plunged into it : of one ... of
something we esteemed and still esteem. Is that anti-
dote strong enough to expel the poison? I hope so!
I believe so ! To lose faith in womankind is terrible.'

SIR WILLOUGHBY ACHIEVES PATHOS 89

He studied her. She looked distressed : she was not
moved.

She was thinking that, with the exception of a strain of
haughtiness, he talked excellently to men, at least in the
tone of the things he meant to say ; but that his manner of
talking to women went to an excess in the artificial tongue —
the tutored tongue of sentimental deference of the towering
male: he fluted exceedingly; and she wondered whether
it was this which had wrecked him with Miss Middleton.

His intuitive sagacity counselled him to strive for pathos
to move her. It was a task ; for while he perceived her
to be not ignorant of his plight, he doubted her knowing
the extent of it, and as his desire was merely to move her
without an exposure of himself, he had to compass being
pathetic as it were imder the impediments of a mailed and
gauntleted knight, who cannot easily heave the bosom, or
show it heaving.

Moreover pathos is a tide : often it carries the awakener
of it off his feet, and whirls him over and over, armour and
all in ignominious attitudes of helpless prostration, where-
of he may well be ashamed in the retrospect. We cannot
quite preserve our dignity when we stoop to the work of
calling forth tears. Moses had probably to take a nimble
jump away from the rock after that venerable Law-giver
had knocked the water out of it.

However, it was imperative in his mind that he should
be sure he had the power to move her.

He began: clumsily at first, as yonder gauntleted
knight attempting the briny handkerchief :

' What are we ! We last but a very short time. Why
not live to gratify our appetites ? I might really ask my-
self why. All the means of satiating them are at my dis-
posal. But no: I must aim at the highest: — at that
which in my blindness I took for the highest. You know
, the sportsman's instinct, Lsetitia ; he is not tempted by the

90 THE EGOIST

stationary object. Such are we in youth, toying with
happiness, leaving it, to aim at the dazzling and attractive.'

' We gain knowledge,' said Laetitia.

'At what cost!'

The exclamation summoned self-pity to his aid, and
pathos was handy.

'By paying half our lives for it and all our hopes!
Yes, we gain knowledge, we are the wiser; very probably
my value surpasses now what it was when I was happier.
But the loss! That youthful bloom of the soul is like
health to the body ; once gone, it leaves cripples behind.
Nay, my friend and precious friend, these four fingers
I must retain. They seem to me the residue of a wreck :
you shall be released shortly : absolutely, Laetitia, I have
nothing else remaining. — ^We have spoken of deception :
what of being undeceived? — when one whom we adored
is laid bare, and the wretched consolation of a worthy
object is denied to us. No misfortune can be like that.
Were it death, we could worship still. Death would be
preferable. But may you be spared to know a situation
in which the comparison with your inferior is forced on
you to your disadvantage and your loss because of your
generously giving up your whole heart to the custody of

some shallow, light-minded, self ! ... we will not deal

in epithets. If I were to find as many bad names for the
serpent as there are spots on his body, it would be
serpent still, neither better nor worse. . . . The loneli-
ness ! And the darkness ! Our luminary is extinguished.
Self-respect refuses to continue worshipping, but the
affection will not be turned aside. We are literally in the
dust, we grovel, we would fling away self-respect if we
could ; we would adopt for a model the creature preferred
to us ; we would humiliate, degrade ourselves ; we cry for
justice as if it were for pardon . . . '

'For pardon! when we are straining to grant it!'

SIR WILLOUGHBY ACHIEVES PATHOS 91

Laetitia murmured, and it was as much as she could do.
She remembered how in her old misery her efforts after
charity had twisted her round to feel herself the sinner,
and beg forgiveness in prayer: a noble sentiment, that
filled her with pity of the bosom in which it had sprung.
There was no similarity between his idea and hers, but
her idea had certainly been roused by his word 'pardon,'
and he had the benefit of it ia the moisture of her eyes.
Her lips trembled, tears fell.

He had heard something ; he had not caught the words,
but they were manifestly favourable ; her sign of emotion
assured him of it and of the success he had sought. There
was one woman who bowed to him to all eternity ! He
had inspired one woman with the mysterious man-desired
passion of self-abandonment, self-immolation ! The evi-
dence was before him. At any instant he could, if he
pleased, fly to her and command her enthusiasm.

He had, in fact, perhaps by sympathetic action, suc-
oeeded in striking the same springs of pathos in her which
animated his lively endeavour to produce it in himself.

He kissed her hand ; then released it, quitting his chair
to bend above her soothingly.

'Do not weep, Laetitia, you see that I do not: I can
smile. Help me to bear it ; you must not unman me.'

She tried to stop her crying ; but self-pity threatened to
rain all her long years of grief on her head, and she said : ' I
must go ... I am unfit . . . good night. Sir WUloughby.'

Fearing seriously that he had sunk his pride too low in
her consideration, and had been carried farther than he
intended on the tide of pathos, he remarked : 'We will
speak about Crossjay to-morrow. His deceitfulness has
been gross. As I said, I am grievously offended by de-
ception. But you are tired. Good night, my dear friend.'

'Good night, Sir Willoughby.'
. She was allowed to go forth.

92 THE EGOIST

Colonel De Craye coming up from the smoking-room,
met her and noticed the state of her eyelids, as he wished
her good night. He saw WUloughby in the room she had
quitted, but considerately passed without speaking, and
without reflecting why he was considerate.

Our hero's review of the scene made him on the whole
satisfied with his part in it. Of his power upon one
woman he was now perfectly sure : — Clara had agonized
him with a doubt of his personal mastery of any. One,
was a poor feast, but the pangs of his flesh during the last
few days and the latest hours, caused him to snatch at it,
hungrily if contemptuously. A poor feast, she was yet a
fortress, a point of succour, both shield and lance; a
cover and an impetus. He could now encounter Clara
boldly. Should she resist and defy him, he would not be
naked and alone; he foresaw that he might win honour
in the world's eye from his position: — a matter to be
thought of only in most urgent need. The effect on him
of his recent exercise in pathos was to compose him to
slumber. He was for the period well-satisfied.

His attendant imps were well-satisfied likewise, and
danced a round about his bed after the vigilant gentleman
had ceased to debate on the question of his unveiling of
himself past forgiveness of her to Lsetitia, and had sur-
rendered unto benignant sleep the present direction of his
affairs.

CHAPTER XXXII

L^TITIA DALE DISCOVERS A SPIRITUAL CHANGE AND
DR. MIDDLETON A PHYSICAL

Clara tripped over the lawn in the early morning to
Lsetitia to greet her. She broke away from a colloquy

LiETITIA AND DR. MIDDLETON 93

with Colonel De Craye under Sir Willoughby's windows.
The colonel had been one of the bathers, and he stood like
a circus driver, flicking a wet towel at Crossjay capering.

'My dear, I am very unhappy !' said Clara.

'My dear, I bring you news,' Lsetitia replied.

'Tell me. But the poor boy is to be expelled! He
burst into Crossjay's bed-room last night, and dragged the
sleeping boy out of bed to question him, and he had the
truth. That is one comfort : only Crossjay is to be driven
from the Hall because he was imtruthful previously — for
me : to serve me ; really, I feel it was at my command.
Crossjay will be out of the way to-day and has promised to
come back at night to try to be forgiven. You must help
me, Lsetitia.'

'You are free, Clara ! If you desire it, you have but to
ask for your freedom.'

'You mean . . .?'

'He will release you.'

'You are sure?'

'We had a long conversation last night.'

*I owe it to you?'

'Nothing is owing to me. He volunteered it.*

Clara made as if to lift her eyes in apostrophe. 'Pro-
fessor Crooklyn ! Professor CrookljTi ! I see. I did not
guess that!'

'Give credit for some generosity, Clara ; you are unjust.'

'By-and-by: I will be more than just by-and-by. I
will practise on the trumpet : I will lecture on the great-
ness of the souls of men when we know them thoroughly.
At present we do but half know them, and we are unjust.
You are not deceived, Lsetitia? There is to be no speak-
ing to papa? no delusions? You have agitated me. I
feel myself a very small person indeed. I feel I can under-
stand those who admire him. He gives me back my word
simply? clearly? without — Oh! that long wrangle in

94 THE EGOIST

scenes and letters? And it will be arranged for papa and
me to go not later than to-morrow? Never shall I be
able to explain to any one how I fell into this! I am
frightened at myself when I think of it. I take the whole
blame : I have been scandalous. And dear Lsetitia !
you came out so early in order to tell me?'

' I wished you to hear it.'

'Take my heart.'

'Present me with a part — but for good !'

'Fie ! But you have a right to say it.'

'I mean no unkindness ; but is not the heart you allude
to an alarmingly searching one?'

'Selfish it is, for I have been forgetting Crossjay. If
we are going to be generous, is not Crossjay to be forgiven?
If it were only that the boy's father is away fighting for his
country, endangering his life day by day, and for a stipend
not enough to support his family, we are bound to think of
the boy! Poor dear silly lad! with his "I say. Miss
Middleton, why wouldn't (some one) see my father when
he came here to call on him, and had to walk back ten
miles in the rain?" — I could almost fancy that did me
mischief . . . But we have a splendid morning after
yesterday's rain. And we will be generous. Own,
Lsetitia, that it is possible to gUd the most glorious day of
creation.'

'Doubtless the spirit may do it and make its hues per-
manent,' said Lsetitia.

' You to me, I to you, he to us. Well, then, if he does,
it shall be one of my heavenly days. Which is for the
probation of experience. We are not yet at sunset.'

'Have you seen Mr. Whitford this morning?'

'He passed me.'

'Do not imagine him ever ill-tempered.'

'I had a governess, a learned lady, who taught me in
person the picturesqueness of grumpiness. Her temper

L^TITIA AND DR. MIDDLETON 95

was ever perfect, because she was never in the wrong,
but I being so, she was grumpy. She carried my iniquity
under her brows, and looked out on me through it. I was
a trying child.'

Laetitia said, laughing : 'I can believe it !'

'Yet I liked her and she liked me : we were a kind of
foreground and background: she threw me into relief,
and I was an apology fpr her existence.'

'You picture her to me.'

' She says of me now, that I am the only creature she
has loved. Who knows that I may not come to say the
same of her?'

'You would plague her and puzzle her stUl.'

'Have I plagued and puzzled Mr. Whitford?'

'He reminds you of her?'

'You said you had her picture.'

'Ah ! do not laugh at him. He is a true friend.'

'The man who can be a friend is the man who will
presume to be a censor.'

'A mild one.'

'As to the sentence he pronounces, I am unable to
speak, but his forehead is Rhadamanthine condemnation.'

'Dr. Middleton!'

Clara looked round. 'Who? I? Did you hear an
echo of papa ? He would never have put Rhadamanthus
over European souls, because it appears that Rhadaman-
thus judged only the Asiatic; so you are wrong, Miss
Dale. My father is infatuated with Mr. Whitford.
What can it be ? We women cannot soimd the depths of
scholars, probably because their pearls have no value in
our market ; except when they deign to chasten an im-
pertinent ; and Mr. Whitford stands aloof from any notice
of small fry. He is deep, studious, excellent; and does
it not strike you that if he descended among us he would
be like a Triton ashore?'

96 ^ THE EGOIST

Lsetitia's habit of wholly subservient sweetness, which
was her ideal of the feminine, not yet conciliated with her
acuter character, owing to the absence of full pleasure from
her life — ^the unhealed wound she had sustained and the
cramp of a bondage of such old date as to seem iron —
induced her to say, as if consenting : 'You think he is not
quite at home in society ? ' But she wished to defend him
strenuously, and as a consequence she had to quit the self-
imposed ideal of her daily acting, whereby — ^the case being
unwonted, very novel to her — the lady's intelligence be-
came confused through the process that quickened it ; so
sovereign a method of hoodwinking our bright selves is the
acting of a part, however naturally it may come to us ! and
to this will each honest autobiographical member of the
animated world bear witness.

She added: 'You have not found him sympathetic?
He is. You fancy him brooding, gloomy? He is the
reverse; he is cheerful, he is indifferent to personal mis-
fortune. Dr. Comey says there is no laugh like Vernon
Whitford's, and no humour like his. Latterly he cer-
tainly . . . but it has not been your cruel word grumpi-
ness. The truth is, he is anxious about Crossjay: and
about other things ; and he wants to leave. He is at a
disadvantage beside very lively and careless gentlemen at
present, but your "Triton ashore," is unfair, it is ugly.
He is, I can say, the truest man I know.'

'I did not question his goodness, Lsetitia.'

'You threw an accent on it.'

' Did I ? I must be like Crossjay, who declares he likes
fun best.'

'Crossjay ought to know him, if anybody should. Mr.
Whitf ord has defended you against me, Clara, ever since I
took to calling you Clara. Perhaps when you supposed
him so like your ancient governess, he was meditating how
he could aid you. Last night he gave me reasons for

LiETITIA AND DR. MIDDLETON 97

thinking you would do wisely to confide in Mrs. Mount-
stuart. It is no longer necessary. I merely mention it.
He is a devoted friend.'

' He is an untiring pedestrian.'

'Oh!'

Colonel De Craye, after hovering near the ladies in the
hope of seeing them divide, now adopted the method of
making three that two may come of it.

As he joined them with his glittering chatter, Laetitia
looked at Clara to consult her, and saw the face rosy as a
bride's.

The suspicion she had nursed sprang out of her arms a
muscular fact on the spot.

'Where is my dear boy?' Clara said.

'Out for a holiday,' the colonel answered in her
tone.

'Advise Mr. Whitford not to waste his time in searching
for Crossjay, Laetitia. Crossjay is better out of the way
to-day. At least, I thought so just now. Has he pocket-
money. Colonel De Craye?'

'My lord can command his iim.'

'How thoughtful you are !'

Lsetitia's bosom swelled upon a mute exclamation,
equivalent to : ' Woman ! woman ! snared ever by the
sparkling and frivolous! imdisceming of the faithful,
the modest and beneficent !'

In the secret musings of moralists this dramatic rhetoric
survives.

The comparison was all of her own making and she was
indignant at the contrast, though to what end she was
indignant she could not have said, for she had no idea of
Vernon as a rival of De Craye in the favour of a plighted
lady. But she was jealous on behalf of her sex : her sex's
reputation seemed at stake, and the purity of it was
menaced by Clara's idle preference of the shallower man.

98 THE EGOIST

When the young lady spoke so carelessly of being like
Crossjay, she did not perhaps know that a likeness, based
on a similarity of their enthusiasms, loves, and appetites,
has been established between women and boys. Lsetitia
had formerly chafed at it, rejecting it utterly, save when
now and then in a season of bitterness she handed here
and there a volatile young lady (none but the young) to
be stamped with the degrading brand. Vernon might be
as philosophical as he pleased. To her the gaiety of these
two. Colonel De Craye and Clara Middleton, was dis-
tressingly musical: they harmonized painfully. The
representative of her sex was hurt by it.

She had to stay beside them : Clara held her arm. The
colonel's voice dropped at times to something very like a
whisper. He was answered audibly and smoothly. The
quick-witted gentleman accepted the correction : but in
immediately paying assiduous attentions to Miss Dale, in
the approved intriguer's fashion, he showed himself in
need of another amounting to a reproof. Clara said :
' We have been consulting, Lsetitia, what is to be done to
cure Professor Crooklyh of his cold.' De Craye perceived
that he had taken a wrong step, and he was mightily
surprised that a lesson in intrigue should be read to him
of all men. Miss Middleton's audacity was not so
astonishing: he recognized grand capabilities in the
young lady. Fearing lest she should proceed farther and
cut away from him his vantage-ground of secresy with
her, he turned the subject and was adroitly submissive.

Clara's manner of meeting Sir WUloughby expressed a
timid disposition to friendliness upon a veiled inquiry,
understood by none save Lsetitia, whose brain was racked
to convey assurances to herself of her not having mis-
interpreted him. Could there be any doubt? She
resolved that there could not be; and it was upon this
basis of reason — that she fancied she had led him to it.

L^TITIA AND DR. MIDDLETON 99

Legitimate or not, the fancy sprang from a solid founda-
tion. Yesterday morning she could not have conceived
it. Now she was endowed to feel that she had power to
influence him, because now, since the midnight, she felt
some emancipation from the spell of his physical mastery.
He did not appear to her as a different man, but she had
grown sensible of being a stronger woman. He was no
more the cloud over her, nor the magnet; the cloud
once heaven-suffused, the magnet fatally compelling her
to sway round to him. She admired him still : his hand-
some air, his fine proportions, the courtesy of his bending
to Clara and touching of her hand, excused a fanatical
excess of admiration on the part of a woman in her youth,
who is never the anatomist of the hero's lordly graces.
But now she admired him piecemeal. When it came to
the putting of him together, she did it coldly. To com-
passionate him was her utmost warmth. Without con-
ceiving in him anji;hing of the strange old monster of
earth which had struck the awakened girl's mind of Miss
Middleton, Lsetitia classed him with other men : he was
'one of them.' And she did not bring her disenchant-
ment as a charge against him. She accused herself,
acknowledged the secret of the change to be, that her
youthfulness was dead : — otherwise could she have given
him compassion, and not herself have been carried on the
flood of it? The compassion was fervent, and pure too.
She supposed he would supplicate; she saw that Clara
Middleton was pleasant with him only for what she
expected of his generosity. She grieved. SirWnioughby
was fortified by her sorrowful gaze as he and Clara passed
out together to the laboratory arm in arm.

Lsetitia had to tell Vernon of the uselessness of his beat-
ing the house and groimds for Crossjay. Dr. Middleton
held him fast in discussion upon an overnight's classical
^rangle with Professor Crooklyn, which was to be renewed

100 THE EGOIST

that day. The Professor had appointed to call expressly
to renew it. 'A fine scholar,' said the Rev. Doctor, 'but
crotchety, like all men who cannot stand their Port.'

'I hear that he had a cold,' Vernon remarked. 'I hope
the wine was good, sir.'

As when the foreman of a sentimental jury is commis-
sioned to inform an awful Bench exact in perspicuous
English, of a verdict that must of necessity be pronounced
in favour of the hanging of the culprit, yet would fain at-
tenuate the crime of a palpable villain by a recommenda-
tion to mercy, such foreman, standing in the attentive eye
of a master of grammatical construction, and feeling the
weight of at least three sentences on his brain, together
with a prospect of judicial interrogation for the discovery
of his precise meaning, is oppressed, himself is put on trial
in turn, and he hesitates, he recapitulates, the fear of invo-
lution leads him to be involved ; as far as a man so posted
may, he on his own behalf appeals for mercy; entreats
that his indistinct statement of preposterous reasons may
be taken for understood, and would gladly, were permis-
sion to do it credible, throw in an imploring word, that he
may sink back among the crowd without for the one
imperishable moment publicly swinging in his lordship's
estimation : — much so, moved by chivalry toward a lady,
courtesy to the recollection of a hostess, and particularly
by the knowledge that his hearer would expect with a
certain frigid rigour charity of him. Dr. Middleton paused,
spoke and paused : he stammered. Ladies, he said, were
famous poisoners in the Middle Ages. His opinion was,
that we had a class of manufacturing wine-merchants on
the watch for widows in this country. But he was bound
to state the fact of his waking at his usual hour to the
minute unassailed by headache. On the other hand, this
was a condition of blessedness unanticipated when he
went to bed. Mr. Whitford, however, was not to think

LiETITIA AND DR. MIDDLETON 101

that he entertained rancour toward the wine. It was no
doubt dispensed with the honourable intention of cheer-
ing. In point of flavour execrable, judging by results it
was innocuous.

'The test of it shall be the effect of it upon Professor
Crooklyn, and his appearance in the forenoon according to
promise,' Dr. Middleton came to an end with his perturbed
balancings. 'If I hear more of the eight or twelve winds
discharged at once upon a railway platform, and the
young lady who dries herself of a drenching by drinking
brandy and water with a gentleman at a railway inn, I
shall solicit your sanction to my condemnation of the wine
as anti-Bacchic and a counterfeit presentment. Do not
misjudge me. Our hostess is not responsible. But
widows should marry.'

'You must contrive to stop the Professor, sir, if he
should attack his hostess in that manner,' said Vernon.

'Widows should marry!' Dr. Middleton repeated.

He murmured of objecting to be at the discretion of a
butler : unless, he was careful to add, the aforesaid func-
tionary could boast of an University education : and even
then, said he, it requires a line of ancestry to train a man's
taste.

The Rev. Doctor smothered a yawn. The repression of
it caused a second one, a real monster, to come, big as our
old friend of the sea advancing on the chained-up Beauty.

Disconcerted by this damning evidence of indigestion,
his countenance showed that he considered himself to
have been too lenient to the wine of an unhusbanded
hostess. He frowned terribly.

In the interval Lsetitia told Vernon of Crossjay's flight
for the day, hastily bidding the master to excuse him : she
had no time to hint the grounds of excuse. Vernon
mentally made a guess.
. Dr. Middleton took his arm and discharged a volley at

102 THE EGOIST

the crotchety scholarship of Professor Crooklyn, whom to
confute by book, he directed his march to the hbrary.
Having persuaded himself that he was dyspeptic, he had
grown irascible. He denounced all dining out, eulogized
Patterne Hall as if it were his home, and remembered he
had dreamed in the night: — a most humiliating sign of
physical disturbance. 'But let me find a house in prox-
imity to Patterne, as I am induced to suppose I shall,' he
said, 'and here only am I to be met when I stir abroad.'

Lffititia went to her room. She was complacently
anxious, enough to prefer solitude and be willing to read.
She was more seriously anxious about Crossjay than about
any of the others. For Clara would be certain to speak
very definitely, and how then could a gentleman oppose
her? He would supplicate, and could she be brought to
yield? It was not to be expected of a young lady who
had turned from Sir WUloughby. His inferiors would
have had a better chance. Whatever his faults, he had
that element of greatness which excludes the intercession
of pity. Supplication would be with him a form of
condescension. It would be seen to be such. His was a
monumental pride that could not stoop. She had pre-
served this image of the gentleman for a relic in the ship-
wreck of her idolatry. So she mused between the lines of
her book, and finishing her reading and marking the page,
she glanced down on the lawn. Dr. Middleton was there,
and alone; his hands behind his back, his head bent.
His meditative pace and unwonted perusal of the turf
proclaimed that a non-sentimental jury within had
delivered an unmitigated verdict upon the widow's wine.
Lsetitia hurried to find Vernon.

He was in the hall. As she drew near him, the labora-
tory door opened and shut.

'It is being decided,' said Lsetitia.

Vernon was paler than the hue of perfect calmness.

THE COMIC MUSE ON TWO GOOD SOULS 103

'I want to know whether I ought to take to my heels
like Crossjay, and shun the Professor/ he said.

They spoke in undertones, furtively watching the door.

'I wish what she wishes, I am sure, but it will go badly
with the boy,' said Lsetitia.

'Oh, well, then I '11 take him,' said Vernon, 'I would
rather. I think I can manage it.'

Again the laboratory door opened. This time it shut
behind Miss Middleton. She was highly flushed. Seeing
them, she shook the storm from her brows, with a dead
smile: the best piece of serenity she could put on for
public wear.

She took a breath before she moved.

Vernon strode out of the house.

Clara swept up to Lsetitia.

'You were deceived !'

The hard sob of anger barred her voice.

Lsetitia begged her to come to her room with her.

'I want air : I must be by myself,' said Clara, catching
at her garden-hat.

She walked swiftly to the portico-steps and turned to
the right, to avoid the laboratory windows.

CHAPTER XXXIII

IN WHICH THE COMIC MUSE HAS AN EYE ON TWO
GOOD SOULS

Clara met Vernon on the bowling-green among the
laurels. She asked him where her father was.

'Don't speak to him now,' said Vernon.

'Mr. Whitford, will you?'

'It is not adviseable just now. Wait.'

104 THE EGOIST

'Wait? Why not now?'

' He is not in the right humour.'

She choked. There are times when there is no medicine
for us in sages, we want slaves ; we scorn to temporize,
we must overbear. On she sped, as if she had made the
mistake of exchanging words with a post.

The scene between herself and WUloughby was a thick
mist in her head, except the burden and result of it, that
he held to her fast, would neither assist her to depart nor
disengage her.

Oh, men! men! They astounded the girl; she could
not define them to her understanding. Their motives,
their tastes, their vanity, their tyranny, and the domino
on their vanity, the baldness of their tyranny, clenched
her in feminine antagonism to brute power. She was not
the less disposed to rebellion by a very present sense of the
justice of what could be said to reprove her. She had but
one answer: 'Anything but marry him!' It threw her
on her nature, our last and headlong advocate, who is
quick as the flood to hurry us from the heights to our level, .
and lower, if there be accidental gaps in the channel.
For say we have been guilty of misconduct : can we
redeem it by violating that which we are and live by?
The question sinks us back to the luxuriousness of a sunny
relinquishment of effort in the direction against tide.
Our nature becomes ingenious in devices, penetrative of
the enemy, confidently citing its cause for being frankly
elvish or worse. Clara saw a particular way of forcing
herself to be surrendered. She shut her eyes from it : the
sight carried her too violently to her escape: but her
heart caught it up and huzzaed. To press the points of
her fingers at her bosom, looking up to the sky as she did,
and cry, 'I am not my own; I am his !' was instigation
sufficient to make her heart leap up with all her body's
blush to urge it to recklessness. A despairing creature

THE COMIC MUSE ON TWO GOOD SOULS 105

then may say she has addressed the heavens and has had
no answer to restrain her.

Happily for. Miss Middleton she had walked some
minutes in her chafing fit before the falcon eye of Colonel
De Craye spied her away on one of the beech-knolls.

Vernon stood irresolute. It was decidedly not a moment
for disturbing Dr. Middleton's composure. He meditated
upon a conversation, as friendly as possible, with Wil-
loughby. Round on the front-lawn he beheld Willoughby
and Dr. Middleton together, the latter having halted to
lend attentive ear to his excellent host. Unnoticed by
them or disregarded, Vernon turned back to Laetitia, and
sauntered talking with her of things current for as long
as he could endure to listen to praise of his pure self-
abnegation; proof of how well he had disguised himself,
but it smacked unpleasantly to him. His humourous
intimacy with men's minds likened the source of this
distaste to the gallant aU-or-nothing of the gambler, who
hates the little when he cannot have the much, and would
rather stalk from the tables clean-picked than suffer ruin
to be tickled by driblets of the glorious fortune he has
played for and lost. If we are not to be beloved, spare us
the small coin of compliments on character: especially
when they compliment only our acting. It is partly
endurable to win eulogy for our stately fortitude in losing,
but Lsetitia was unaware that he flung away a stake ; so
she could not praise him for his merits.

'Willoughby makes the pardoning of Crossjay condi-
tional,' he said, 'and the person pleading for him has
to grant the terms. How could you imagine Willoughby
would give her up ! How could he ! Who ! . . . He
should, is easUy said. I was no witness of the scene
between them just now, but I could have foretold the end
of it; I could almost recount the passages. The conse-
quence is, that everything depends upon the amount

106 THE EGOIST

of courage she possesses. Dr. Middleton won't leave
Patteme yet. And it is of no use to speak to him to-day.
And she is by nature imipatient, and is rendered desperate.'

'Why is it of no use to speak to Dr. Middleton to-day?'
said Lsetitia.

'He drank wine yesterday that did not agree with him;
he can't work. To-day he is looking forward to Patterne
Port. He is not likely to listen to any proposals to leave
to-day.'

'Goodness!'

'I know the depth of that cry!'

* You are excluded, Mr. Whitford.'

' Not a bit of it ; I am in with the rest. Say that men
are to be exclaimed at. Men have a right to expect you to
know your own mind when you close on a bargain. You
don't kno'fj' the world or yourselves very well, it 's true ;
still the original error is on your side, and upon that you
should fix your attention. She brought her father here,
and no sooner was he very comfortably established than
she wished to dislocate him.'

'I cannot explain it; I cannot comprehend it,' said
Lsetitia.

'You are Constancy.'

'No.' She coloured. 'I am "in with the rest." I do not
say I should have done the same. But Ihave the knowledge
that I must not sit in judgement on her. I can waver.'

She coloured again. She was anxious that he should
know her to be not that stupid statue of Constancy in a
comer doating on the antic Deception. Reminiscences of
the interview overnight made it oppressive to her to hear
herself praised for always pointing like the needle. Her
newly enfranchised individuality pressed to assert its
existence. Vernon, however, not seeing this novelty,
continued, to her excessive discomfort, to baste her old
abandoned image with his praises. They checked hers;

THE COMIC MUSE ON TWO GOOD SOULS 107

and moreover he had suddenly conceived an envy of her
life-long, uncomplaining, almost unaspiring, constancy of
sentiment. If you know lovers when they have not
reason to be blissful, you will remember that in this mood
of admiring envy they are given to fits of uncontrollable
maundering. Praise of constancy, moreover, smote
shadowily a certain inconstant, enough to seem to ruffle
her smoothness and do no hurt. He found his consolation
in it, and poor Laetitia writhed. Without designing to
retort, she instinctively grasped at a weapon of defence in
further exalting his devotedness; which reduced him to
cast his head to the heavens and implore them to partially
enlighten her. Nevertheless, maunder he must ; and he
recurred to it in a way so utterly unlike himself that
Laetitia stared in his face. She wondered whether there
could be anything secreted behind this everlasting theme
of constancy. He took her awakened gaze for a summons
to asseverations of sincerity, and out they came. She
would have fled from him, but to think of flying was to
think how little it was that urged her to fly, and yet the
thought of remaining and listening to praises undeserved
and no longer flattering, was a torture.

' Mr. Whitf ord, I bear no comparison with you.'
'I do and must set you for my example, Miss Dale.'
' Indeed you do wrongly ; you do not know me.'
'I could say that. For years . . . !'
'Pray, Mr. Whitf ord!'

'Well, I have admired it. You show us how self can
be smothered.'

'An echo would be a retort on you !'
'On me? I am never thinking of anjiihing else.'
'I could say that.'

'You are necessarily conscious of not swerving.'
'But I do; I waver dreadfully; I am not the same
.two days running.'

108 THE EGOIST

'You are the same, with "ravishing divisions" upon
the same.'

'And you without the "divisions." I draw such sup-
port as I have from you.'

'From some simulacrum of me, then. And that will
show you how little you require support.'

'I do not speak my own opinion only.'

'Whose?'

'I am not alone.'

'Again let me say, I wish I were like you !'

'Then let me add, I would willingly make the ex-
change !'

'You would be amazed at your bargain.'

'Others would be!'

'Your exchange would give me the qualities I am in
want of, Miss Dale.'

'Negative, passive, at the best, Mr. Whitford. But /
should have . . .'

'Oh! — pardon me. But you inflict the sensations of
a boy, with a dose of honesty in him, called up to receive
a prize he has won by the dexterous use of a crib.'

'And how do you suppose she feels, who has a crown of
Queen o' the May forced on her head when she is verging
on November?'

He rejected her analogy, and she his. They could
neither of them bring to light the circumstances which
made one another's admiration so unbearable. The more
he exalted her for constancy, the more did her mind
become bent upon critically examining the object of that
imagined virtue; and the more she praised him for
possessing the spirit of perfect friendliness, the fiercer
grew the passion in him which disdained the imputation,
hissing like a heated iron-bar that flings the water-drops
to steam. He would none of it: would rather have
stood exposed in his profound foolishness.

THE COMIC MUSE ON TWO GOOD SOULS 109

Amiable though they were, and mutually affectionate,
they came to a stop in their walk, longing to separate, and
not seeing how it was to be done, they had so knit them-
selves together with the pelting of their interlaudation.

'I think it is time for me to run home to my father for
an hour,' said Lsetitia.

'I ought to be working,' said Vernon.

Good progress was made to the disgarlanding of them-
selves thus far ; yet, an acutely civilized pair, the abrupt-
ness of the transition from floweriness to commonplace
affected them both, Laetitia chiefly, as she had broken
the pause, and she remarked,

'I am really Constancy in my opinions.'

'Another title is customary where stiff opinions are
concerned. Perhaps by-and-by you wUl learn your
mistake, and then you will acknowledge the name for it.'

'How?' said she. 'What shall I learn?'

'If you learn that I am a grisly Egoist?'

'You? And it would not be egoism,' added Lsetitia,
revealing to him at the same instant as to herself, that she
swung suspended on a scarce credible guess.

' — Will nothing pierce your ears, Mr. Whitford?'

He heard the intruding voice, but he was bent on rub-
bing out the cloudy letters Lsetitia had begun to spell, and
he stammered in a tone of matter-of-fact : ' Just that and
no better'; then turned to Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson.

' — Or are you resolved you will never see Professor
Crooklyn when you look on him?' said the great
lady.

Vernon bowed to the Professor and apologized to him
shufflingly and rapidly, incoherently, and with a red face ;
which induced Mrs. Mountstuart to scan Lsetitia's.

After lecturing Vernon for his abandonment of her yes-
terday evening, and flouting his protestations, she re-
turned to the business of the day. 'We walked from the

110 THE EGOIST

lodge-gates to see the park and prepare ourselves for Dr.
Middleton. We parted last night in the middle of a
controversy and are rageing to resume it. Where is our
redoubtable antagonist ? '

Mrs. Mountstuart wheeled Professor Crooklyn round
to accompany Vernon.

'We,' she said, 'are for modem English scholarship,
opposed to the champion of German.'

'The contrary,' observed Professor Crooklyn.

'Oh. We,' she corrected the error serenely, 'are for
German scholarship, opposed to English.'

'Certain editions.'

'We defend certain editions.'

' Defend, is a term of imperfect application to my posi-
tion, ma'am.'

' My dear Professor, you have in Dr. Middleton a match
for you in conscientious pugnacity, and you will not waste
it upon me. There, there they are ; there he is. Mr.
Whitford will conduct you. I stand away from the first
shock.'

Mrs. Mountstuart fell back to Lsetitia, saying: 'He
pores over a little inexactitude in phrases, and pecks at it
like a domestic fowl.'

Professor Crooklyn's attitude and air were so well de-
scribed that Laetitia could have laughed.

'These mighty scholars have their flavour,' the great
lady hastened to add, lest her younger companion should
be misled to suppose that they were not valuable to a.
governing hostess : ' their shadow-fights are ridiculous,
but they have their flavour at a table. Last night, no :
I discard all mention of last night. We failed : as none
else in this neighbourhood could fail, but we failed. If
we have among us a cormorant devouring young lady who
drinks up all the — ha ! — brandy and water — of our inns
and occupies all our flys, why, our condition is abnormal.

THE COMIC MUSE ON TWO GOOD SOULS 111

and we must expect to fail : we are deprived of accom-
modation for accidental circumstances. How Mr. Whit-
ford could have missed seeing Professor" Crooklyn ! And
what was he doing at the station, Miss Dale?'

'Your portrait of Professor Crooklyn was too striking,
Mrs. Mountstuart, and deceived him by its excellence.
He appears to have seen only the blank side of the slate.'

'Ah. He is a faithful friend of his cousin, do you not
think?'

'He is the truest of friends.'

'As for Dr. Middleton,' Mrs. Mountstuart diverged
from her inquiry, 'he will swell the letters of my vocabu-
lary to gigantic proportions if I see much of him : he is
contagious.'

'I believe it is a form of his humour.'

'I caught it of him yesterday at my dinner-table in my
distress, and must pass it off as a form of mine, while it
lasts. I talked Dr. Middleton half the dreary night
through to my pillow. Your candid opinion, my dear,
come ! As for me, I don't hesitate. We seemed to have
sat down to a solitary performance on the bass-viol. We
were positively an assembly of insects during thunder.
My very soul thanked Colonel De Craye for his diversions,
but I heard nothing but Dr. Middleton. It struck me
that my table was petrified, and every one sat listening
to bowls played overhead.'

'I was amused.'

'Really? You delight me. Who knows but that my
guests were sincere in their congratulations on a thor-
oughly successful evening? I have fallen to this, you
see ! And I know, wretched people ! that as often as
not it is their way of condoling with one. I do it myself :
but only where there have been amiable efforts. But
imagine my being congratulated for that ! — Good morn-
ing. Sir WUloughby. — ^The worst offender ! and I am in

112 THE EGOIST

no pleasant mood with him,' Mrs. Mountstuart said aside
to Lffititia, who drew back, retiring.

Sir Willoughby came on a step or two. He stopped to
watch Lsetitia's figure swimming to the house.

So, as, for instance, beside a stream, when a flower on
the surface extends its petals drowning to subside in the
clear still water, we exercise our privilege to be absent
in the charmed contemplation of a beautiful natural
incident.

A smUe of pleased abstraction melted on his features.

CHAPTER XXXIV

MHS. MOUNTSTUAKT AND SIR WILLOUGHBT

'GooD-MOBNiNG, my dear Mrs. Mountstuart,' Sir Wil-
loughby wakened himself to address the great lady.
'Why has she fled?'

'Has any one fled?'

'Lffititia Dale.'

'Letty Dale? Oh! if you call that flying. Possibly
to renew a close conversation with Vernon Whitford,
that I cut short. You frightened me with your "Shep-
herds-tell-me" air and tone. Lead me to one of your
garden-seats: out of hearing to Dr. Middleton, I beg.
He mesmerizes me, he makes me talk Latin. I was
curiously susceptible last night. I know I shall ever-
lastingly associate him with an abortive entertainment
and solos on big instruments. We were flat.'

'Horace was in good vein.'

'You were not.'

' And Laetitia — Miss Dale talked well, I thought.'

'She talked with you, and no doubt she talked well.

MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND WILLOUGHBY 113

We did not mix. The yeast was bad. You shot darts
at Colonel De Craye : you tried to sting. You brought
Dr. Middleton down on you. Dear me, that man is a
reverberation in my head. Where is your lady and love ? '

'Who?'

'Am I to name her?'

'Clara? I have not seen her for the last hour. Wan-
dering, I suppose.'

'A very pretty summer-bower,' said Mrs. Mountstuart,
seating herself. 'Well, my dear Sir Willoughby, prefer-
ences, preferences are not to be accounted for, and one
never knows whether to pity or congratulate, whatever
may occur. I want to see Miss Middleton.'

'Your "dainty rogue in porcelain" will be at your
beck — you lunch with us ? — before you leave.'

'So now you have taken to quoting me, have you?'

'But, "a romantic tale on her eyelashes," is hardly
descriptive any longer.'

' Descriptive of whom ? Now you are upon Laetitia Dale !'

'I quote you generally. She has now a graver look.'

'And well may have !'

'Not that the romance has entirely disappeared.'

'No : it looks as if it were in print.'

'You have hit it perfectly, as usual, ma'am.'

Sir Willoughby mused.

Like one resuming his instrument to take up the
melody in a concerted piece, he said: 'I thought
Lsetitia Dale had a singularly animated air last night.'

'Why !' Mrs. Mountstuart mildly gaped.

'I want a new description of her. You know, I collect
your mottoes and sentences.'

'It seems to me she is coming three parts out of her
shell, and wearing it as a hood for convenience.'

'Ready to issue forth at an invitation? Admirable!
exact !'

114 THE EGOIST

'Ay, my good Sir Willoughby, but are we so very ad-
mirable and exact? Are we never to know our own
minds?'

He produced a polysyllabic sigh, like those many-
jointed compounds of poets in happy languages, which
are copious in a single expression : ' Mine is known to me.
It always has been. Cleverness in women is not un-
common. Intellect is the pearl. A woman of intellect
is as good as a Greek statue ; she is divinely wrought, and
she is divinely rare.'

'Proceed,' said the lady, confiding a cough to the air.

'The rarity of it: — and it is not mere intellect, it is a
sympathetic intellect ; or else it is an intellect in perfect
accord with an intensely sympathetic disposition; — the
rarity of it makes it too precious to be parted with when
once we have met it. I prize it the more the older I
grow.'

'Are we on the feminine or the neuter?'

'I beg pardon?'

'The imiversal or the individual?'

He shrugged. 'For the rest, psychological affinities
may exist coincident with and entirely independent of
material or moral prepossessions, relations, engagements,
ties.'

'Well, that is not the raving of passion, certainly,' said
Mrs. Mountstuart, 'and it 'sounds as if it were a comfort-
able doctrine for men. On that plea, you might all of
you be having Aspasia and a wife. We saw your fair
Middleton and Colonel De Craye at a distance as we
entered the park. Professor Crooklyn is under some
hallucination.'

'What more likely?'

The readiness and the double-bearing of the reply
struck her comic sense with awe.

'The Professor must hear that. He insists on the fly,

MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND WILLOUGHBY 115

and the inn, and the wet boots, and the wanning mixture,
and the testimony of the landlady and the railway porter.'

'I say, what more likely?'

'Than that he shovdd insist?'

'If he is under the hallucination !'

'He may convince others.'

'I have only to repeat . . . !'

'"What more likely?" It's extremely philosophical.
Coincident with a pursuit of the psychological affinities.'

'Professor Crooklyn will hardly descend, I suppose,
from his classical altitudes to lay his hallucinations before
Dr. Middleton?'

'Sir Willoughby, you are the pink of chivalry !'

By harping on Lsetitia, he had emboldened Mrs. Mount-
stuart to lift the curtain upon Clara. It was offensive to
him, but the injury done to his pride had to be endured
for the sake of his general plan of self-protection.

'Simply desirous to save my guests from annoyance of
any kind,' he said. 'Dr. Middleton can look "Olympus
and thunder," as Vernon calls it.'

'Don't. I see him. That look! It is Dictionary-
bitten! Angry, homed Dictionary! — an apparition of
Dictionary in the night — ^to a dunce !'

.'One would undergo a good deal to avoid the sight.'

'What the man must be in a storm ! Speak as you
please of yourself : you are a true and chivalrous knight
to dread it for her. But now candidly, how is it you
cannot condescend to a little management? Listen to
an old friend. You are too lordly. No lover can afford
to be incomprehensible for half an hour. Stoop a little.
Sermonizings are not to be thought of. You can govern
unseen. You are to know that I am one who disbelieves
in philosophy in love. I admire the look of it, I give no
credit to the assumption. I rather like lovers to be out
,at times: it makes them picturesque, and it enlivens

116 THE EGOIST

their monotony. I perceived she had a spot of wildness.
It 's proper that she should wear it off before marriage.'

'Clara? The wildness of an infant !' said Willoughby,
paternally musing over an inward shiver. 'You saw her
at a distance just now, or you might have heard her
laughing. Horace diverts her excessively.'

' I owe him my eternal gratitude for his behaviour last
night. She was one of my bright faces. Her laughter
was delicious ; rain in the desert ! It will tell you what
the load on me was, when I assure you those two were
merely a spectacle to me — points I scored in a lost game.
And I know they were witty.'

'They both have wit; a kind of wit,' Willoughby
assented.

■'They struck together like a pair of cymbals.'

'Not the highest description of instrument. However,
they amuse me. I like to hear them when I am in the
vein.'

'That vein should be more at command with you, my
friend. You can be perfect, if you like.'

'Under your tuition.'

Willoughby leaned to her, bowing languidly. He was
easier in his pain for having hoodwinked the lady. She
was the outer world to him : she could tune the \yorld's
voice ; prescribe which of the two was to be pitied, him-
self or Clara; and he did not intend it to be himself, if
it came to the worst.

They were far away from that at present, and he con-
tinued : 'Probably a man's power of putting on a face is
not equal to a girl's. I detest petty dissensions. Pro-
bably I show it when all is not quite smooth. Little fits
of suspicion vex me. It is a weakness, not to play them
off, I know. Men have to learn the arts which come to
women by nature. I don't sympathize with suspicion,
from having none myself.'

MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND WILLOUGHBY 117

His eyebrows shot up. That ill-omened man Flitch
had sidled round by the bushes to within a few feet of
him.

Flitch primarily defended himself against the accusa-
tion of drunkenness, which was hurled at him to account
for his audacity in trespassing against the interdict : but
he admitted that he had taken 'something short' for a
fortification in visiting scenes where he had once been
happy — at Christmastide, when all the servants, and the
butler at head, gray old Mr. Chessington, sat in rows, toast-
ing the young heir of the old HaU in the old port wine !
Happy had he been then, before ambition for a shop, to
be his own master and an independent gentleman, had
led him into his quagmire : — to look back envying a dog
on the old estate, and sigh for the smell of Patterne
stables : sweeter than Arabia, his drooping nose appeared
to say.

He held up close against it something that imposed
silence on Sir Willoughby as effectually as a cunning
exordium in oratory will enchain mobs to swallow what
is not complimenting them : and this he displayed, secure
in its being his license to drivel his abominable pathos.
Sir Willoughby recognized Clara's purse. He understood
at once how the man must have come by it : he was not
so quick in devising a means of stopping the tale. Flitch
foiled him. 'Intact,' he replied to the question: 'What
have you there?' He repeated this grand word. And
then he turned to Mrs. Mountstuart to speak of Paradise
and Adam, in whom he saw the prototype of himself :
also the Hebrew people in the bondage of Egj^jt, dis-
coursed of by the clergymen, not without a likeness to
him.

' Sorrows have done me one good, to send me attentive
to church, my lady,' said Flitch, 'when I might have
gone to London, the coachman's home, and been driving

118 THE EGOIST

some honourable family, with no great advantage to my
morals, according to what I hear of. And a purse found
under the seat of a fly in London would have a poor chance
of returning intact to the young lady losing it.'

'Put it down on that chair; inquiries will be made,
and you will see Sir Willoughby,' said Mrs. Mountstuart.
'Intact, no doubt; it is not disputed.'

With one motion of a finger she set the man rounding.
Flitch halted : he was very regretful of the termination of
his feast of pathos, and he wished to relate the finding of
the purse, but he could not encounter Mrs. Mountstuart's
look : he slouched away in very close resemblance to the
ejected Adam of illustrated books.

'It 's my belief that naturalness among the common
people has died out of the kingdom,' she said.

Willoughby charitably apologized for him. 'He has
been fuddling himself.'

Her vigilant considerateness had dealt the sensitive
gentleman a shock, plainly telling him she had her ideas
of his actual postiue. Nor was he unhurt by her superior
acuteness and her display of authority on his grounds.

He said boldly, as he weighed the purse, half tossing it :
'It 's not unlike Clara's.'

He feared that his lips and cheeks were twitching, and
as he grew aware of a glassiness of aspect that wotdd
reflect any suspicion of a keen-eyed woman, he became
bolder still: 'Lsetitia's, I know it is not. Hers is an
ancient purse.'

'A present from you !'

'How do you hit on that, my dear lady?'

'Deductively.'

'Well, the purse looks as good as new in quality, like
the owner.'

'The poor dear has not much occasion for using it.'

'You are mistaken : she uses it daily.'

MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND WILLOUGHBY 119

'If it were better filled, Sir Willoughby, your old
scheme might be arranged. The parties do not appear
so unwilluig. Professor Crooklyn and I came on them
just now rather by surprise, and I assure you their heads
were close, faces meeting, eyes musing.'

'Impossible.'

'Because when they approach the point, you won't
allow it ! Selfish !'

'Now,' said Willoughby, very animatedly, 'question
Clara. Now, do, my dear Mrs. Mountstuart, do speak
to Clara on that head; she will convince you I have
striven quite recently : — against myself, if you like. I
have instructed her to aid me, given her the fullest in-
structions, carte blanche. She cannot possibly have a
doubt. I may look to her to remove any you may enter-
tain from your mind on the subject. I have proposed,
seconded and chorussed it, and it will not be arranged. If
you expect me to deplore that fact, I can only answer
that my actions are under my control, my feelings are not.
I will do everything consistent with the duties of a man
of honour — perpetually running into fatal errors because
he did not properly consult the dictates of those feelings
at the right season. I can violate them : but I can no
more command them than I can my destiny. They were
crushed of old, and so let them be now. Sentiments, we
won't discuss; though you know that sentiments have
a bearing on social life : are factors, as they say in their
later jargon. I never speak of mine. To you I could.
It is not necessary. If old Vernon, instead of flattening
his chest at a desk had any manly ambition to take part
ia public affairs, she would be the woman for him. I
have called her my Egeria. She would be his Cornelia.
One could swear of her that she would have noble off-
spring ! — But old Vernon has had his disappointment,
and will moan over it up to the end. And she? So it

120 THE EGOIST

appears. I have tried ; yes, personally : without effect.
In other matters I may have influence with her : not in
that one. She declines. She will live and die Lsetitia
Dale. We are alone : I confess to you, I love the name.
It 's an old song in my ears. Do not be too ready with a
name for me. Believe me — I speak from my experience
hitherto — there is a fatality in these things. I cannot
conceal from my poor girl that this fatality exists . . . '

'Which is the poor girl at present?' said Mrs. Mount-
stuart, cool in a mystification.

'And though she will tell you that I have authorized
and — Clara Middleton — done as much as man can to
institute the union you suggest, she will own that she is
conscious of the presence of this — ^fatality, I call it for
want of a better title^between us. It drives her in one
direction, me in another — or would, if I submitted to the
pressure. She is not the first who has been conscious
of it.'

'Are we laying hold of a third poor girl?' said Mrs.
Mountstuart. 'Ah! I remember. And I remember we
used to call it playing fast and loose in those days, not
fatality. It is very strange. It may be that you were
unblushingly courted in those days, and excuseable : and
we all supposed . . . but away you went for your tour.'

'My mother's medical receipt for me. Partially it
succeeded. She was for grand marriages : not I. I
could make, I could not be a sacrifice. And then I went
in due time to Dr. Cupid on my own account. She has
the kind of attraction . . . But one changes ! On revient
toujours. First we begin with a liking : then we give
ourselves up to the passion for beauty : then comes the
serious question of suitableness of the mate to match us :
and perhaps we discover that we were wiser in early
youth than somewhat later. However, she has beauty.
Now, Mrs. Mountstuart, you do admire her. Chase the

MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND WILLOUGHBY 121

idea of the "dainty rogue" out of your view of her : you
admire her: she is captivating; she has a particular
charm of her own, nay, she has real beauty.'

Mrs. Mountstuart fronted him to say: 'Upon my
word, my dear Sir Willoughby, I think she has it to such
a degree that I don't know the man who could hold out
against her if she took the field. She is one of the women
who are dead shots with men. Whether it 's in their
tongues or their eyes, or it 's an effusion and an atmos-
phere — whatever it is, it 's a spell, another fatality for
you!'

'Animal; not spiritual!'

' Oh ! she hasn't the head of Letty Dale.'

Sir Willoughby allowed Mrs. Moimtstuart to pause and
follow her thoughts.

'Dear me!' she exclaimed. 'I noticed a change in
Letty Dale last night : and to-day. She looked fresher
and younger ; extremely well : which is not what I can
say for you, my friend. Fatalizing is not good for the
complexion.'

'Don't take away my health, pray !' cried Willoughby,
with a snapping laugh.

'Be careful,' said Mrs. Mountstuart. 'You have got
a sentimental tone. You talk of "feelings crushed of
old." It is to a woman, not to a man that you speak,
but that sort of talk is a way of making the ground
slippery. I listen in vain for a natural tongue; and
when I don't hear it, I suspect plotting in men. You
show your under-teeth too at times when you draw in a
breath, like a condemned high-caste Hindoo my husband
took me to see in a jail in Calcutta, to give me some ex-
citement when I was pining for England. The creature
did it regularly as he breathed; you did it last night,
and you have been doing it to-day, as if the air cut you
to the quick. You have been spoUt. You have been.

122 THE EGOIST

too much anointed. What I 've just mentioned is a sign
with me of a settled something on the brain of a man.'

'The brain?' said Sir Willoughby, frowning.

'Yes, you laugh sourly, to look at,' said she. 'Mount-
stuart told me that the muscles of the mouth betray men
sooner than the eyes, when they have cause to be uneasy
in their minds.'

'But, ma'am, I shall not break my word; I shall not,
not; I intend, I have resolved to keep it. I do not
fatalize, let my complexion be black or white. Despite
my resemblance to a high-class malefactor of the Cal-
cutta prison- wards . . .'

'Friend ! friend ! you know how I chatter.'

He saluted her finger-ends. 'Despite the extraor-
dinary display of teeth, you will find me go to execution
with perfect calmness; with a resignation as good as
happiness.'

'Like a Jacobite lord under the Georges.'

'You have told me that you wept to read of one : like
him, then. My principles have not changed, if I have.
When I was younger, I had an idea of a wife who would
be with me in my thoughts as well as aims : a woman with
a spirit of romance, and a brain of solid sense. I shall
sooner or later dedicate myself to a public life ; and shall,
I suppose, want the counsellor or comforter who ought
always to be found at home. It may be unfortunate
that I have the ideal in my head. But I would never
make rigorous demands for specific qualities. The
cruellest thing in the world is to set up a living model
before a wife, and compel her to copy it. In any case,
here we are upon the road: the die is cast. I shall not
reprieve myself. I cannot release her. Marriage rep-
resents facts, courtship fancies. She will be cured by-
and-by of that coveting of everything that I do, feel,
think, dream, imagine . . . ta-ta-ta-ta ad iufinitum.

MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND WILLOUGHBY 123

Lsetitia was invited here to show her the example of a
fixed character — solid as any concrete substance you
would choose to build on, and not a whit the less
feminine.'

'Ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum. You need not tell me
you have a design in all that you do, Willoughby
Patteme.'

'You smell the autocrat? Yes, he can mould and
govern the creatures about him. His toughest rebel is
himself! K you see Qara . . . You wish to see her, I
think you said?'

'Her behaviour to Lady Busshe last night was
queer.'

'If you will. She makes a mouth at porcelain. Tou-
jours la porcelaine ! For me, her pettishness is one of
her charms, I confess it. Ten years younger, I could not
have compared them.'

'Whom?'

'Lsetitia and Clara.'

' Sir Willoughby, m any case, to quote you, here we are
all upon the road, and we must act as if events were going
to happen ; and I must ask her to help me on the subject
of my wedding-present, for I don't want to have her
making mouths at mine, however pretty — and she does
it prettily.'

'"Another dedicatory offering to the rogue in me!"
she says of porcelain.'

'Then porcelain it shall not be. I mean to consult her ;
I have come determined upon a chat with her. I think
I imderstand. But she produces false impressions on
those who don't know you both. "I shall have that
porcelain back," says Lady Busshe to me, when we were
shaking hands last night : "I think," says she, "it should
have been the Willow Pattern." And she really said:
"he 's in for being jilted a second time !"'

124 THE EGOIST

Sir Willoughby restrained a bound, of his body that
would have sent him up some feet into the air. He felt
his skull thundered at within.

'Rather than that it should fall upon her!' ejaculated
he, correcting his resemblance to the high-caste culprit
as soon as it recurred to him.

'But you know Lady Busshe,' said Mrs. Mountstuart,
genuinely solicitous to ease the proud man of his pain.
She could see through him to the depth of the skin, which
his fencing sensitiveness vainly attempted to cover as it
did the heart of him. 'Lady Busshe. is nothing without
her flights, fads, and fancies. She has always insisted
that you have an unfortunate nose. I remember her
sajdng on the day of your majority, it was the nose of a
monarch destined to lose a throne.'

'Have I ever offended Lady Busshe?'

'She trumpets you. She carries Lady Culmer with
her too, and you may expect a visit of nods and hints and
pots of alabaster. They worship you : you are the hope
of England in their eyes, and no woman is worthy of you :
but they are a pair of fatalists, and if you begin upon
Letty Dale with them, you might as well forbid your
banns. They will be all over the country exclaiming on
predestination and marriages made in heaven.'

'Clara and her father !' cried Sir WUloughby.

Dr. Middleton and his daughter appeared in the circle
of shrubs and flowers.

'Bring her to me, and save me from the polyglot,'
said Mrs. Mountstuart, in affright at Dr. Middleton's
manner of pouring forth into the ears of the downcast
girl.

The leisure he loved that he might debate with his genius
upon any next step was denied to Willoughby: he had
to place his trust in the skill with which he had sown
and prepared Mrs. Mountstuart's imderstanding to meet

MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND WILLOUGHBY 125

the girl — beautiful abhorred that she was ! detested
darling ! thing to squeeze to death and throw to the dust,
and mourn over !

He had to risk it ; and at an hour when Lady Busshe's
prognostic grievously impressed his intensely apprehen-
sive nature.

As it happened that Dr. Middleton's notion of a dis-
agreeable duty in colloquy was to deliver all that he con-
tained, and escape the listening to a syllable of reply,
Willoughby withdrew his daughter from him opportunely.

'Mrs. Mountstuart wants you, Clara.'

'I shall be very happy,' Clara replied, and put on a
new face.

An imperceptible nervous shrinking was met by
another force in her bosom, that pushed her to advance
without a sign of reluctance. She seemed to glitter.

She was handed to Mrs. Mountstuart.

Dr. Middleton laid his hand over Willoughby's shoulder,
retiring on a bow before the great lady of the district.
He blew and said : 'An opposition of female instincts to
masculine intellect necessarily creates a corresponding
antagonism of intellect to instinct.'

'Her answer, sir? Her reasons? Has she named
any?'

'The cat,' said Dr. Middleton, taking breath for a sen-
tence, ' that humps her back in the figure of the letter H,
or a Chinese bridge, 'has given the dog her answer and her
reasons, we may presume : but he that undertakes to
translate them into human speech might likewise venture
to propose an addition to the alphabet and a continuation
of Homer. The one performance would be not more
wonderful than the other. Daughters, Willoughby,
daughters ! Above most human peccancies, I do abhor
a breach of faith. She will not be gmlty of that. I de-
mand a cheerful fulfilment of a pledge: and I sigh to

126 THE EGOIST

think that I cannot count on it without administering a
lecture.'

'She will soon be my care, sir.'

'She shall be. Why, she is as good as married. She is
at the altar. She is in her house. She is — why, where
is she not? She has entered the sanctuary. She is out
of the market. This msenad shriek for freedom would
happily entitle her to the Republican cap — the Phrygian
— in a revolutionary Parisian procession. To me it has
no meaning : and but that I cannot credit child of mine
with mania, I should be in trepidation of her wits.'

Sir WUloughby's livelier fears were pacified by the in-
formation that Clara had simply emitted a cry. Clara
had once or twice given him cause for starting and con-
sidering whether to think of her sex differently or con-
demningly of her, yet he could not deem her capable of
fully unbosoming herself even to him, and under excite-
ment. His idea of the cowardice of girls combined with
his ideal of a waxwork sex to persuade him that though
they are often (he had experienced it) wantonly desperate
in their acts, their tongues are curbed by rosy pudency.
And this was in his favour. For if she proved speechless
and stupid with Mrs. Mountstuart, the lady would turn
her over, and beat her flat, beat her angular, in fine, turn
her to any shape, despising her, and cordially believe
him to be the model gentleman of Christendom. She
would fill in the outlines he had sketched to her of a
picture that he had small pride in by comparison with
his early vision of a fortune-favoured, triumphing squire,
whose career is like the sun's, intelligibly lordly to all
comprehensions. Not like your model gentleman, that
has to be expounded — a thing for abstract esteem ! How-
ever, it was the choice left to him. And an alternative
was enfolded in that. Mrs. Mountstuart's model gentle-
man could marry either one of two women, throwing

MRS. MOUNTSTUART AND WILLOUGHBY 127

the other overboard. He was bound to marry : he was
bound to take to himself one of them: and whichever
one he selected would cast a lustre on his reputation.
At least she would rescue him from the claws of Lady
Busshe, and her owl's hoot of 'Willow Pattern,' and
her hag's shriek of 'twice jilted.' That flying infant
Willoughby — ^his unprotected little incorporeal omni-
present Self (not thought of so much as passionately felt
for) — would not be scoffed at as the luckless with women.
A fall indeed from his original conception of his name
of fame abroad! But Willoughby had the high con-
solation of knowing that others have fallen lower. There
is the fate of the devils to comfort us, if we are driven
hard. For one of your pangs another bosom is racked by
ten, we read in the solacing Book.

With all these nice calculations at work, Willoughby
stood above himself, contemplating his active machinery,
which he could partly criticize but could not stop, in a
singular wonderment at the aims and schemes and tre-
mours of one who was handsome, manly, acceptable in the
world's eyes : and had he not loved himself most heartily
he would have been divided to the extent of repudiating
that urgent and excited half of his being, whose motions
appeared as those of a body of insects perpetually erecting
and repairing a structure of extraordinary pettiness. He
loved himself too seriously to dweU on the division for more
than a minute or so. But having seen it, and for the first
time, as he believed, his passion for the woman causing
it became surcharged with bitterness, atrabiliar.

A glance behind him, as he walked away with Dr.
Middleton, showed Clara, cunning creature that she was,
airily executing her malicious graces in the preliminary
courtesies with Mrs. Mountstuart.

128 THE EGOIST

CHAPTER XXXV

MISS MIDDLETON AND MBS. MOXINTSTTJART

*SiT beside me, fair Middleton,' said the great lady.

'Gladly/ said Clara, bowing to her title.

'I want to sound you, my dear.'

Clara presented an open countenance with a dim interro-
gation on the forehead. 'Yes?' she said submissively.

' You were one of my bright faces last night. I was in
love with you. Delicate vessels ring sweetly to a finger-
nail, and if the wit is true, you answer to it ; that I can see,
and that is what I like. Most of the people one has at a
table are drums. A rub-a-dub-dub on them is the only
way to get a sound. When they can be persuaded to do
it upon one another, they call it conversation.'

'Colonel De Craye was very fxinny.'

'Funny, and witty too.'

'But never spiteful.'

'These Irish or half-Irishmen are my taste. If they 're
not politicians, mind: I mean Irish gentlemen. I will
never have another dinner-party without one. Our men's
tempers are uncertain. You can't get them to forget
themselves. And when the wine is in them the nature
comes out, and they must be buffeting, and up start
politics, and good-bye to harmony ! My husband, I am
sorry to say, was one of those who have a long account of
ruined dinners against them. I have seen him and his
friends red as the roast and white as the boiled with wrath
on a popular topic they had excited themselves over,
intrinsically not worth a snap of the fingers. In London !'
exclaimed Mrs. Mountstuart, to aggravate the charge
against her lord in the Shades. 'But town or country,

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART 129

the table should be sacred. I have heard women say it is
a plot on the side of the men to teach us our littleness.
I don't believe they have a plot. It would be to compli-
ment them on a talent. I believe they fall upon one
another blindly, simply because they are full : which is,
we are told, the preparation for the fighting Englishman.
They cannot eat and keep a truce. Did you notice that
dreadful Mr. Capes?'

'The gentleman who frequently contradicted papa?
But Colonel De Craye was good enough to relieve us.'

'How, my dear?'

'You did not hear him? He took advantage of an
interval when Mr. Capes was breathing after a paean to his
friend, the Governor — I think — of one of the Presidencies,
to say to the lady beside him: "He was a wonderful
administrator and great logician; he married an Anglo-
Indian widow, and soon after published a pamphlet in
favour of Suttee.'"

'And what did the lady say?'

'She said, "Oh."'

'Hark at her! And was it heard?'

'Mr. Capes granted the widow, but declared he had
never seen the pamphlet in favour of Suttee, and dis-
believed in it. He insisted that it was to be named Sati.
He was vehement.'

' Now I do remember : — which must have delighted the
colonel. And Mr. Capes retired from the front upon a
repetition of "in toto, in toto." As if "in toto" were the
language of a dinner-table! But what will ever teach
these men? Must we import Frenchmen to give them an
example in the art of conversation, as their grandfathers
brought over marquises to instruct them in salads ? And
our young men too ! Women have to take to the hunting-
field to be able to talk with them and be on a par with
their grooms. Now, there was Willoughby Patteme, a

130 THE EGOIST

prince among them formerly. Now, did you observe him
last night? did you notice how, instead of conversing,
instead of assisting me — as he was bound to do doubly,
owing to the defection of Vemon Whitford: a thing I
don't yet comprehend — ^there he sat sharpening his lower
lip for cutting remarks. And at my best man ! at Colonel
De Craye! If he had attacked Mr. Capes, with his
Governor of Bomby, as the man pronounces it, or Colonel
Wildjohn and his Protestant Church in Danger, or Sir
Wilson Pettifer harping on his Monarchical Republic, or
any other ! No, he preferred to be sarcastic upon friend
Horace, and he had the worst of it. Sarcasm is so silly !
What is the gain if he has been smart? People forget the
epigram and remember the other's good temper. On that
field, my dear, you must make up your mind to be beaten
by "friend Horace." I have my prejudices and I have
my prepossessions, but I love good temper, and I love wit,
and when I see a man possessed of both, I set my cap at
him, and there 's my flat confession, and highly unfeminine
it is.'

'Not at all !' cried Clara.

'We are one, then.'

Clara put up a mouth empty of words : she was quite
one with her. Mrs. Mountstuart pressed her hand.
'When one does get intimate with a dainty rogue!' she
said. 'You forgive me all that, for I could vow that
Willoughby has betrayed me.'

Clara looked soft, kind, bright, in turns, and clouded
instantly when the lady resumed: 'A friend of my own
sex, and young, and a close neighbour, is just what I would
have prayed for. And I '11 excuse you, my dear, for not
being so anxious about the friendship of an old woman.
But I shall be of use to you, you will find. In the first
place, I never tap for secrets. In the second, I keep them.
Thirdly, I have some power. And fourth, every young

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART 131

married woman has need of a friend like me. Yes, and
Lady Patterne heading all the county will be the stronger
for my backing. You don't look so mighty well pleased,
my dear. Speak out.'

'Dear Mrs. Mountstuart !'

' I tell you, I am very fond of Willoughby, but I saw the
faults of the boy and see the man's. He has the pride of
a king, and it 's a pity if you offend it. He is prodigal in
generosity, but he can't forgive. As to his own errors, you
must be blind to them as a Saint. The secret of him is,
that he is one of those excessively civilized creatures who
aim at perfection : and I think he ought to be supported
in his conceit of having attained it ; for the more men of
that class, the greater, our influence. He excels in manly
sports, because he won't be excelled in anything, but as
men don't comprehend his fineness, he comes to us ; and
his wife must manage him by that key. You look down
at the idea of managing. It has to be done. One thing
you may be assured of, he will be proud of you. His wife
won't be very much enamoured of herself if she is not the
happiest woman in the world. You will have the best
horses, the best dresses, the finest jewels, in England ; and
an incomparable cook. The house will be changed the
moment you enter it as Lady Patterne. And, my dear,
just where he is, with all his graces, deficient of attraction,
yours will tell. The sort of Othello he would make, or
Leontes, I don't know, and none of us ever needs to know.
My impression is, that if even a shadow of a suspicion
flitted across him, he is a sort of man to double-dye him-
self in guilt by way of vengeance in anticipation of an
imagined offence. Not uncommon with men. I have
heard strange stories of them : and so will you in your
time to come, but not from me. No young woman shall
ever be the sourer for having been my friend. One word
of advice now we are on the topic : never play at counter-

132 THE EGOIST

strokes with him. He will be certain to outstroke you,
and you will be driven farther than you meant to go.
They say we beat men at that game, and so we do, at the
cost of beating ourselves. And if once we are started, it is
a race-course ending on a precipice — over goes the winner.
We must be moderately slavish to keep our place ; which is
(given us in appearance; but appearances make up a
'remarkably large part of life, and far the most comfort-
able, so long as we are discreet at the right moment. He
is a man whose pride, when hurt, would run his wife to
perdition to solace it. If he married a troublesome
widow, his pamphlet on Suttee would be out within the
year. Vernon Whitford would receive instructions about
it the first frosty moon. You like Miss Dale?'

'I think I like her better than she likes me,' said
Clara.

I 'Have you never warmed together?'
' ' I have tried it. She is not one bit to blame. I can see
how it is that she misunderstands me : or justly condemns
me, perhaps I should say.'

'The hero of two women must die and be wept over in
common before they can appreciate one another. You
are not cold?'

'No.'

'You shuddered, my dear.'

'Did I?'

' I do sometimes. Feet will be walking over one's grave,
wherever it lies. Be sure of this : Willoughby Patterne
is a man of unimpeachable honour.'

'I do not doubt it.'

'He means to be devoted to you. He has been
accustomed to have women hanging around him like
votive offerings.'

'I . . .!'

' You cannot : of course not : any one could see that at

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART 133

a glance. You are all the sweeter to me for not being
tame. Marriage cures a multitude of indispositions.'

' Oh ! Mrs. Mountstuart, will you listen to me ? '

'Presently. Don't threaten me with confidences.
Eloquence is a terrible thing in woman. I suspect, my
dear, that we both know as much as could be spoken.'

'You hardly suspect the truth, I fear.'

'Let me teU you one thing about jealous men — when
they are not blackamoors married to disobedient
daughters. I speak of our civil creature of the drawing-
rooms: and lovers, mind, not husbands: two distinct
species, married or not : — ^they 're rarely given to jealousy
unless they are flighty themselves. The jealousy fixes
them. They have only to imagine that we are for some
fun likewise and they grow as deferential as my footman,
as harmless as the sportsman whose gun has burst. Ah !
my fair Middleton, am I pretending to teach you ? You
have read him his lesson, and my table suffered for it last
night, but I bear no rancour.'

'You bewilder me, Mrs. Moimtstuart.'

'Not if I tell you that you have driven the poor man to
try whether it would be possible for him to give you up.'

'I have?'

'Well, and you are successful.'

'I am?'

'Jump, my dear!'

'He will?'

'When men love stale instead of fresh, withered better
than blooming, excellence in the abstract rather than the
palpable. With their idle prate of feminine intellect, and
a grotto nymph, and, and a mother of Gracchi! Why,
he must think me dazed with admiration of him to talk to
me ! One listens, you know. And he is one of the men
who cast a kind of physical spell on you while he has you
by the ear, until you begin to think of it by talking to

134 THE EGOIST

somebody else. I suppose there are clever people who do
see deep into the breast while dialogue is in progress.
One reads of them. No, my dear, you have very cleverly
managed to show him that it isn't at all possible: he
can't. And the real cause for alarm in my humble
opinion is lest your amiable f oU should have been a trifle,
as he would say, deceived, too much in earnest, led too far.
One may reprove him for not being wiser, but men won't
learn without groaning, that they are simply weapons
taken up to be put down when done with. Leave it to
me to compose him. — Willoughby can't give you up. I 'm
certain he has tried ; his pride has been horribly wounded.
You are shrewd, and he has had his lesson. If these little
rufflings don't come before marriage they come after;
so it 's not time lost ; and it 's good to be able to look
back on them. You are very white, my child.'

' Can you, Mrs. Mountstuart, can you think I would be
so heartlessly treacherous?'

'Be honest, fair Middleton, and answer me: Can you
say you had not a corner of an idea of producing an effect
on Willoughby?'

Clara checked the instinct of her tongue to defend her
reddening cheeks, with a sense that she was disintegrating
and crumbling ; but she wanted this lady for a friend, and
she had to submit to the conditions, and be red and silent.

Mrs. Mountstuart examined her leisurely.

'That will do. Conscience blushes. One knows it by
the outer conflagration. Don't be hard on yourself : there
you are in the other extreme. That blush of yours would
count with me against any quantity of evidence — all the
Crooklyns in the kingdom. You lost your purse.'

'I discovered that it was lost this morning.'

'Flitch has been here with it. Willoughby has it.
You will ask him for it ; he will demand payment : you
will be a couple of yards' length or so of cramoisy : and

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART 135

there ends the episode, nobody killed, only a poor man
melancholy-wounded, and I must offer him my hand to
mend him, vowing to prove to him that Suttee was
properly abolished. Well, and now to business. I said I
wanted to sound you. You have been overdone with
porcelain. Poor Lady Busshe is in despair at your
disappointment. Now, I mean my wedding-present to
be to your taste.'

'Madam!'

'Who is the madam you are imploring?'

'Dear Mrs. Mountstuart !'

'WeU?'

' I shall fall in your esteem. Perhaps you will help me.
No one else can. I am a prisoner: I am compelled to
continue this imposture. Oh ! I shun speaking much :
you object to it and I dislike it : but I must endeavour to
explain to you that I am unworthy of the position you
think a proud one.'

'Tut-tut ; we are all imworthy, cross our arms, bow our
heads ; and accept the honours. Are you playing humble
handmaid? What an old organ-time that is! WeU?
Give me reasons.'

' I do not wish to marry.'

'He 's the great match of the county !'

'I cannot marry him.'

'Why, you are at the church-door with him! Cannot
marry him ? '

' It does not bind me.'

'The church-door is as binding as the altar to an
honourable girl. What have you been about? Since
I am in for confidences, half ones won't do. We must
have honourable young women as well as men of honour.
You can't imagine he is to be thrown over now, at this
hour? What have you against him? come!'

'I have found that I do not . . .'

136 THE EGOIST

'What?'

'Love him.'

Mrs. Mountstuart grimaced transiently. 'That is no
answer. The cause!' she said. 'What has he done?'

'Nothmg.'

'And when did you discover this nothing?'

' By degrees : unknown to myself ; suddenly.'

' Suddenly and by degrees ? I suppose it 's useless to
ask for a head. But if all this is true, you ought not to be
here.'

' I wish to go ; I am unable.'

'Have you had a scene together?'

' I have expressed my wish.'

'In roundabout? — girl's English?'

'Quite clearly. Oh! very clearly.'

'Have you spoken to your father?'

'I have.'

'And what does Dr. Middleton say?'

'It is incredible to him.'

'To me too! I can understand little differences, little
whims, caprices : we don't settle into harness for a tap on
the shoulder, as a man becomes a knight : but to break
and boimce away from an unhappy gentleman at the
church-door is either madness or it 's one of the things
without a name. You think you are quite sure of your-
self?'

' I am so sure, that I look back with regret on the time
when I was not.'

'But you were in love with him.'

' I was mistaken.'

'No love?'

' I have none to give.'

'Dear me! — Yes, yes, but that tone of sorrowful con-
viction is often a trick, it 's not new : and I know that
assumption of plain sense to pass off a monstrosity.' Mrs.

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART 137

Mountstuart struck her lap : ' Soh ! but I 've had to rack
my brain for it: feminine disgust? You have been
hearing imputations on his past life ? moral character ?
No? Circumstances might make him behave unkindly,
not unhandsomely : and we have no claim over a man's
past, or it 's too late to assert it. What is the case?'

' We are quite divided.'

'Nothing in the way of . . , nothing green-eyed?'

'Far from that!'

'Then, name it.'

'We disagree.'

'Many a very good agreement is founded on disagree-
ing. It 's to be regretted that you are not portionless.
If you had been, you would have made very little of
disagreeing. You are just as much bound in honour as if
you had the ring on your finger.'

' In honour ! But I appeal to his, I am no wife for him.'

'But if he insists, you consent !'

'I appeal to reason. Is it, madam . . .'

'But, I say, if he insists, you consent!'

'He will insist upon his own misery as well as mine.'

Mrs. Mountstuart rocked herself. 'My poor Sir Wil-
loughby ! What a fate ! — ^And I who took you for a clever
girl! Why, I have been admiring your management of
him ! And here am I bound to take a lesson from Lady
Busshe. My dear good Middleton, don't let it be said
that Lady Busshe saw deeper than I ! I put some little
vanity in it, I own: I won't conceal it. She declares
that when she sent her present — I don't believe her — ^she
had a premonition that it would come back. Surely you
won't justify the extravagances of a woman without
common reverence: — ^for anatomize him as we please to
ourselves, he is a splendid man (and I did it chiefly to
encourage and come at you). We don't often behold
such a lordly-looking man : so conversable too when he

138 THE EGOIST

feels at home ; a picture of an English gentleman ! The
very man we want married for our neighbourhood! A
woman who can openly talk of expecting him to be twice
jilted! You shrink. It is repulsive. It would be in-
comprehensible : except, of course, to Lady Busshe, who
rushed to one of her violent conclusions and became a
prophetess. Conceive a woman imagining it could happen
twice to the same man ! I am not sure she did not send
the identical present that arrived and returned once
before: you know, the Durham engagement. She told
me last night she had it back. I watched her listening
very suspiciously to Professor Crooklyn. My dear,
it is her passion to foretell disasters — her passion!
And when they are confirmed, she triumphs, of course.
We shall have her domineering over us with sapient nods
at every trifle occurring. The coimty will be unendure-
able. Unsay it, my Middleton ! And don't answer like
an oracle because I do all the talking. Pour out to me.
You '11 soon come to a stop and find the want of reason in
the want of words. I assure you that 's true. — Let me
have a good gaze at you. No,' said Mrs. Mountstuart,
after posturing herself to peruse Clara's features, 'brains
you have : one can see it by the nose and the mouth. I
could vow you are the girl I thought you ; you have your
wits on tiptoe. How of the heart ? '

'None,' Clara sighed.

The sigh was partly voluntary, though unforced; as
one may with ready sincerity act a character that is our
own only through sympathy.

Mrs. Mountstuart felt the extrarweight in the young
lady's falling breath. There was no necessity for a deep
sigh over an absence of heart or confession of it. If
Clara did not love the man to whom she was betrothed,
sighing about it signified — what ? some pretence : and a
pretence is the cloak of a secret. Girls do not sigh in that

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART 139

way with compassion for the man they have no heart for,
unless at the same time they should be oppressed by the
knowledge or dread of having a heart for some one else.
As a rule, they have no compassion to bestow on him :
you might as reasonably expect a soldier to bewail the
enemy he strikes in action : they must be very disengaged
to have it. And supposing a show of the thing to be
exhibited, when it has not been worried out of them, there
is a reserve in the background: they are pitying them-
selves under a mask of decent pity of their wretch.

So ran Mrs. Mountstuart's calculations, which were like
her suspicion, coarse and broad, not absolutely incorrect,
but not of an exact measure with the truth. That pin's
head of the truth is rarely hit by design. The search after
it of the professionally penetrative in the dark of a bosom
may bring it forth by the heavy knocking all about the
neighbourhood that we caU good guessing, but it does not
come out clean; other matter adheres to it; and being
more it is less than truth. The unadulterate is to be had
only by faith in it or by waiting for it.

A lover ! thought the sagacious dame. There was no
lover : some love there was : or rather, there was a pre-
paration of the chamber, with no lamp yet lighted.

'Do you positively tell me you have no heart for the
position of first lady of the county?' said Mrs. Mount-
stuart.

Clara's reply was firm : 'None whatever.*

' My dear, I will believe you on one condition. — Look at
me. You have eyes. If you are for mischief, you are
armed for it. But how much better, when you have won a
prize, to settle down and wear it ! Lady Patteme will
have entire occupation for her flights and whimsies in
leading the county. And the man, surely the man — ^he
behaved badly last night: but a beauty like this,' she
pushed a finger at Clara's cheek, and doated a half instant.

140 THE EGOIST

' you have the very beauty to break in an ogre's temper.
And the man is as governable as he is presentable. You
have the beauty the French caU — ^no, it 's the beauty of a
queen of elves : one sees them lurking about you, one here,
one there. Smile — ^they dance: be doleful — ^they hang'
themselves. No, there 's not a trace of satanic ; at least,
not yet. And come, come, my Middleton, the man is a
man to be proud of. You can send him into Parliament
to wear off his humours. To my thinking, he has a fine
style : conscious ? I never thought so before last night.
I can't guess what has happened to him recently. He
was once a young Grand Monarque. He was really a
superb young English gentleman. Have you been
wounding him?'

' It is my misfortune to be obliged to wound him,' said
Clara.

' Quite needlessly, my child, for marry him you must.'

Clara's bosom rose : her shoulders rose too, narrowing,
and her head fell slightly back.

Mrs. Mountstuart exclaimed : ' But the scandal ! You
would never never think of following the example of that
Durham girl? — whether she was provoked to it by
jealousy or not. It seems to have gone so astonishingly
far with you in a very short time, that one is alarmed as
to where you will stop. Your look just now was down-
right revulsion.'

' I fear it is. It is. I am past my own control. Dear
madam, you have my assurance that I will not behave
scandalously or dishonourably. What I would entreat
of you, is to help me. I know this of myself : I am not
the best of women. I am impatient, wickedly. I should
be no good wife. Feelings like mine teach me unhappy
things of myself.'

'Rich, handsome, lordly, influential, brilliant health,
fine estates,' Mrs. Mountstuart enumerated in petulant

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART 141

accents as they started across her mind some of Sir
Willoughby's attributes for the attraction of the soul of
woman. ' I suppose you wish me to take you in earnest ? '

'I appeal to you fortelp.'

'What help?'

'Persuade him of the folly of pressing me to keep my
word.'

'I will believe you, my dear Middleton, on one condi-
tion : — your talk of no heart is nonsense. A change like
this, if one is to believe in the change, occurs through the
heart, not because there is none. Don't you see that?
But if you want me for a friend, you must not sham
stupid. It 's bad enough in itself : the imitation 's horrid.
You have to be honest with me, and answer me right out.
You came here on this visit intending to marry Willoughby
Patterne.'

'Yes.'

'And gradually you suddenly discovered, since you came
here, that you did not intend it, if you could find a means
of avoiding it.'

' Oh ! madam, yes, it is true.'

' Now comes the test. And, my lovely Middleton, your
flaming cheeks won't suffice for me this time. The old
serpent can blush like an innocent maid on occasion.
You are to speak, and you are to tell me in six words why
that was: and don't waste one on "madam," or "Oh!
Mrs. Moimtstuart." Why did you change?'

'I came . . . when I came I was in some doubt.
Indeed I speak the truth. I found I could not give him
the admiration he has, I dare say, a right to expect. I
turned — it surprised me: it surprises me now. But so
completely ! So that to think of marrying him is . . .'

'Defer the simile,' Mrs. Mountstuart interposed. 'If
you hit on a clever one, you will never get the better of it.
Now, by just as much as you have outstripped my

142 THE EGOIST

limitation of words to you, you show me you are dis-
honest.'

'I could make a vow.'

'You would forswear yourself.'

'Will you help me?'

'If you are perfectly ingenuous, I may try.'

'Dear lady, what more can I say?'

'It may be difficult. You can reply to a catechism.'

'I shall have your help?'

'Well, yes; though I don't like stipulations between
friends. There is no man living to whom you could
willingly give your hand ? That is my question. I caimot
possibly take a step unless I know. Reply briefly : there
is or there is not.'

Clara sat back with bated breath, mentally taking the
leap into the abyss, realizing it, and the cold prudence of
abstention, and the delirium of the confession. Was
there such a man? It resembled freedom to think there
was : to avow it promised freedom.

'Oh! Mrs. Mountstuart.'

'Well?'

'You will help me?'

' Upon my word, I shall begin to doubt your desire for it.'

'Willingly give my hand, madam?'

' For shame ! And with wits like yours, can't you per-
ceive where hesitation in answering such a question lands
you?'

'Dearest lady, will you give me your hand? may I
whisper?'

' You need not whisper : I won't look.'

Clara's voice trembled on a tense chord.

'There is one . . . compared with him I feel my insig-
nificance. If I could aid him.'

'What necessity have you to tell me more than that
there is one?'

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART 143

*Ah, madam, it is different : not as you imagine. You
bid me be scrupulously truthful : I am : I wish you to
know the different kind of feeling it is from what might be
suspected from ... a confession. To give my hand, is
beyond any thought I have ever encouraged. If you had
asked me whether there is one whom I admire — yes, I do.
I cannot help admiring a beautiful and brave self-denying
nature. It is one whom you must pity, and to pity casts
you beneath him: for you pity him because it is his
nobleness that has been the enemy of his fortunes. He
lives for others.'

Her voice was musically thrilling in that low muted tone
of the very heart, impossible to deride or disbelieve.

Mrs. Moimtstuart set her head nodding on springs.

'Is he clever?'

'Very.'

'He talks well?'

'Yes.'

'Handsome?'

'He might be thought so.'

'Witty?'

'I think he is.'

'Gay, cheerful?'

'In his manner.'

' Why, the man would be a mountebank if he adopted
any other. And poor?'

'He is not wealthy.'

Mrs. Moimtstuart preserved a lengthened silence, but
nipped Clara's fingers once or twice to reassure her without
approving. ' Of course he 's poor,' she said at last ;
'directly the reverse of what you could have, it must be.
Well, my fair Middleton, I can't say you have been dis-
honest. I '11 help you as far as I 'm able. How, it is
quite impossible to tell. We 're in the mire. The best
way seems to me, to get this pitiable angel to cut some

144 THE EGOIST

ridiculous capers and present you another view of him.
I don't believe in his innocence. He knew you to be a
plighted woman.'

'He has not once by word or sign hinted a disloyalty.'

'Then how do you know . . . ?'

' I do not know.'

' He is not the cause of your wish to break your engage-
ment?'

'No.'

'Then you have succeeded in just telling me nothing.
What is?'

'Ah! madam.'

'You would break your engagement purely because the
admirable creature is in existence?'

Clara shook her head: she could not say: she was
dizzy. She had spoken out more than she had ever
spoken to herself : and in doing so she had cast herself a
step beyond the line she dared to contemplate.

' I won't detain you any longer,' said Mrs. Mountstuart.
'The more we learn, the more we are taught that wears
not so wise as we thought we were. I have to go to school
to Lady Busshe ! I really took you for a very clever girl.
If you change again, you will notify the important circum-
stance to me, I trust.'

'I will,' said Clara, and no violent declaration of the
impossibility of her changeing again would have had such
an effect on her hearer.

Mrs. Mountstuart scanned her face for a new reading of
it to match with her later impressions.

'I am to do as I please with the knowledge I have
gained ? '

' I am utterly in your hands, madam.'

'I have not meant to be unkind.'

' You have not been unkind ; I could embrace you.'

'I am rather too shattered, and kissing won't put me

y

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART 145

together. I laughed at Lady Busshe! No wonder you
went off like a rocket with a disappointing bouquet when
I told you you had been successful with poor Sir Wil-
loughby and he could not give you up. I noticed that.
A woman like Lady Busshe, always prying for the
lamentable, would have required no further enlightenment.
Has he a temper?'

Clara did not ask her to signalize the person thus
abruptly obtruded.

'He has faults,' she said.

' There 's an end to Sir Willoughby, then ! Though I
don't say he will give you up even when he hears the worst,
if he must hear it, as for his own sake he should. And I
won't say he ought to give you up. He '11 be the pitiable
angel if he does. For you — but you don't deserve compli-
ments; they would be immoral. You have behaved
badly, badly, badly. I have never had such a right-about-
face in my life. You will deserve the stigma : you will
be notorious : you will be called Number Two. Think of
that ! Not even original ! We will break the conference,
or I shall twaddle to extinction. I think I heard the
luncheon-bell.'

'It rang.'

'You don't look fit for company, but you had better
come.'
. ' Oh ! yes : every day it 's the same.'

' Whether you 're in my hands or I 'm in yours, we 're a
couple of arch-conspirators against the peace of the family
whose table we 're sitting at, and the more we rattle the
viler we are, but we must do it to ease our minds.'

Mrs. Mountstuart spread the skirts of her voluminous
dress, remarking further : ' At a certain age our teachers
are young people: we leam by looking backward. It
speaks highly for me that I have not called you mad. —
Full of faults, goodish-looking, not a bad talker, cheerful,

146 THE EGOIST

poorish; — and she prefers that to this!' the great lady
exclaimed ia her reverie while emerging from the circle of
shrubs upon a view of the Hall.

Colonel De Craye advanced to her; certainly good-
looking, certainly cheerful, by no means a bad talker,
nothing of a Croesus, and variegated with faults.

His laughing smile attacked the irresolute hostility of
her mien, confident as the sparkle of sunlight in a breeze.
The effect of it on herself angered her on behalf of Sir
Willoughby's bride.

' Good morning, Mrs. Mountstuart ; I believe I am the
last to greet you.'

'And how long do you remain here, Colonel De
Craye?'

'I kissed earth when I arrived, like the Norman
William, and consequently I 've an attachment to the soil,
ma'am.'

'You are not going to take possession of it, I suppose?'

'A handful would satisfy me!'

'You play the Conqueror pretty much, I have heard.
But property is held more sacred than in the times of the
Norman William.'

'And speaking of property, Miss Middleton, your purse
is found,' he said.

'I know it is,' she replied, as unaffectedly as Mrs.
Mountstuart could have desired, though the ingenuous
air of the girl incensed her somewhat.

Clara passed on.

'You restore purses,' observed Mrs. Mountstuart.

Her stress on the word, and her look, thrilled De Craye :
for there had been a long conversation between the young
lady and the dame.

'It was an article that dropped and was not stolen,'
said he.

'Barely sweet enough to keep, then!'

CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE 147

'I think I could have felt to it like poor Flitch, the
flyman, who was the finder.'

' If you are conscious of these temptations to appropri-
ate what is not your own, you should quit the neighbour-
hood.'

'And do it elsewhere? But that's not virtuous
counsel.'

' And I 'm not counselling in the interests of your
virtue, Colonel De Craye.'

'And I dared for a moment to hope that you were,
ma'am,' he said, ruefully drooping.

They were close to the dining-room window, and Mrs.
Mountstuart preferred the terminating of a dialogue that
did not promise to leave her features the austerely iron
cast with which she had commenced it. She was under
the spell of gratitude for his behaviour yesterday evening
at her dinner-table ; she could not be very severe.

CHAPTER XXXVI

ANIMATED CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE

Vernon was crossiug the hall to the dining-room as Mrs.
Mountstuart stepped in. She called to him: 'Are the
champions reconciled?'

He replied : ' Hardly that, but they have consented to
meet at an altar to offer up a victim to the Gods, in the
shape of modem poetic imitations of the classical.'

'That seems innocent enough. The Professor has not
been anxious about his chest?'

'He recollects his cough now and then.'

'You must help him to forget it.'

' Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer are here,' said Vernon,

148 THE EGOIST

not supposing it to be a grave announcement until the
effect of it on Mrs. Mountstuart admonished him.

She dropped her voice : ' Engage my fair friend for one
of your walks the moment we rise from table. You may
have to rescue her ; but do. I mean it.'

'She 's a capital walker,' Vernon remarked in simpleton
style.

' There 's no necessity for any of your pedestrian feats,'
Mrs. Mountstuart said, and let him go, turning to Colonel
De Craye to pronounce an encomium on him : 'The most
open-minded man I know ! Warranted to do perpetual
service and no mischief. If you were all . . . instead of
catching at every prize you covet ! Yes, you would have
your reward for unselfishness, I assure you. Yes, and
where you seek it ! That is what none of you men will
believe.'

'When you behold me in your own livery!' cried the
colonel.

'Do I?' said she, dallying with a half-formed design to
be confidential. 'How is it one is always tempted to
address you in the language of innuendo ? I can't guess.'

' Except that as a dog doesn't comprehend good English
we naturally talk bad to him.'

The great lady was tickled. Who could help being
amused by this man ? And after all, if her fair Middleton
chose to be a fool, there could be no gainsa)dng her, sorry
though poor Sir Willoughby's friends must feel for him.

She tried not to smile.

'You are too absurd. Or a baby, you might have
added.'
, 'I hadn't the daring.'

' I '11 tell you what. Colonel De Craye, I shall end by
falling in love with you; and without esteeming you, I
fear.'

'The second follows as surely as the flavour upon a

CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE 149

draught of Bacchus, if you '11 but toss off the glass,
ma'am.'

'We women, sir, think it should be first.'

"Tis to transpose the seasons, and give October the
blossom, and April the apple, and no sweet one ! Esteem 's
a mellow thing that comes after bloom and fire, like an
evening at home ; because if it went before it would have
no father and couldn't hope for progeny ; for there 'd be
no nature in the business. So please, ma'am, keep to the
original order, and you '11 be nature's child and I the most
blest of mankind.'

'Really, were I fifteen years younger. I am not so
certain ... I might try and make you harmless.'

' Draw the teeth of the lamb so long as you pet him ! '

'I challenged you, colonel, and I won't complain of
your pitch. But now lay your wit down beside your
candour and descend to an every-day level with me for a
minute.'

'Is it innuendo?'

' No, though I dare say it would be easier for you to
respond to, if it were.'

' I 'm the straightforwardest of men at a word of
command.'

'This is a whisper. Be alert as you were last night.
Shuffle the table well. A little liveliness will do it. I
don't imagine malice, but there 's curiosity, which is often
as bad, and not so Hghtly foiled. We have Lady Busshe
and Lady Culmer here.'

'To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky!'

'Well, then, can you fence with broomsticks?'

' I have had a bout with them in my time.'

'They are terribly direct.'

'They "give poiut," as Napoleon commanded his
cavalry to do.'

'You must help me to ward it.'

150 THE EGOIST

'They will require variety in the conversation.'

'Constant. You are an angel of intelligence, and if I
have the judging of you, I 'm afraid you '11 be allowed to
pass, in spite of the scandal above. Open the door; I
don't unbonnet.'

De Craye threw the door open.

Lady Busshe was at that moment saying : 'And are we
indeed to have you for a neighbour, Dr. Middleton?'

The Rev. Doctor's reply was drowned by the new
arrivals.

'I thought you had forsaken us,' observed Sir Wil-
loughby to Mrs. Mountstuart.

'And run away with Colonel De Craye? I'm too
weighty, my dear friend. Besides, I have not looked at
the wedding-presents yet.'

'The very object of our call !' exclaimed Lady Culmer.

' I have to confess I am in dire alarm about mine,' Lady
Busshe nodded across the table at Clara. 'Oh! you
may shake your head, but I would rather hear a rough
truth than the most complimentary evasion.'

'How would you define a rough truth. Dr. Middleton?'
gaid Mrs. Mountstuart.

Like the trained warrior who is ready at all hours for the
trumpet to arms, Dr. Middleton wakened up for judicial
allocution in a trice.

'A rough truth, madam, I should define to be that
description of truth which is not imparted to mankind
without a powerful impregnation of the roughness of the
teller.'

'It is a rough truth, ma'am, that the world is composed
of fools, and that the exceptions are knaves,' Professor
Crooklyn furnished the example avoided by the Rev.
Doctor.

'Not to precipitate myself into the jaws of the first
definition, which strikes me as being as happy as Jonah's

CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE 151

whale, that could carry probably the most learned man of
his time inside without the necessity of digesting him,'
said De Craye, ' a rough truth is a rather strong charge of
universal nature for the firing off of a modicum of personal
fact.'

'It is a rough truth that Plato is Moses atticizing,' said
Vernon to Dr. Middleton, to keep the diversion alive.

'And that Aristotle had the globe imder his cranium,'
rejoined the Rev. Doctor.

'And that the Modems live on the Ancients.'

'And that not one in ten thousand can refer to the par-
ticular treasury he filches.'

'The Art of our days is a revel of rough truth,' remarked
Professor Crookljoi.

'And the literature has laboriously mastered the
adjective, wherever it may be in relation to the noun,'
Dr. Middleton added.

' Orson's first appearance at Court was in the figure of a
rough truth, causing the Maids of Honour, accustomed
to Tapestry Adams, astonishment and terror,' said De
Craye.

That he might not be left out of the sprightly play. Sir
Willoughby levelled a lance at the quintaiu, smUing on
Lsetitia: 'In fine, caricature is rough truth.'

She said : ' Is one end of it, and realistic directness is
the other.'

He bowed : 'The palm is yours.'

Mrs. Mountstuart admired herself as each one trotted
forth in turn characteristically, with one exception un-
aware of the aid which was being rendered to a distressed
damsel wretchedly incapable of decent hypocrisy. Her
intrepid lead had shown her hand to the colonel and drawn
the enemy at a blow.

Sir Willoughby's 'in fine,' however, did not please her:
still less did his lackadaisical Lothario-like bowing and

152 THE EGOIST

smiling to Miss Dale : and he perceived it and was hurt.
For how, carrying his tremendous load, was he to compete
with these imhandicapped men in the game of nonsense she
had such a fondness for starting at a table? He was
further annoyed to hear Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel
Patteme agree together, that 'caricature' was the final
word of the definition. Relatives should know better
than to deliver these awards to us in public.

'Well!' quoth Lady Busshe, expressive of stupefaction
at the strange dust she had raised.

'Are they on view, Miss Middleton?' inquired Lady
Culmer.

'There 's a regiment of us on view and ready for in-
spection,' Colonel De Craye bowed to her, but she would
not be foiled. 'Miss Middleton's admirers are always on
view,' said he.

'Are they to be seen?' said Lady Busshe.

Clara made her face a question, with a laudable smooth-
ness.

'The wedding-presents,' Lady Culmer explained.

'No.'

'Otherwise, my dear, we are in danger of duplicating
and triplicating and quadruplicating, not at all to the
satisfaction of the bride.'

'But there's a worse danger to encounter in the "on
view," my lady,' said De Craye; 'and that's the mag-
netic attraction a display of wedding-presents is sure to
have for the ineffable burglar, who must have a nuptial
soul in him, for wherever there 's that collection on view,
he 's never a league off. And 'tis said he knows a lady's
dressing-case presented to her on the occasion, fifteen
years after the event.'

'As many as fifteen?' said Mrs. Mountstuart.

' By computation of the police. And if the presents are
on view, dogs are of no use, nor bolts, nor bars : — he 's

CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE 153

worse than Cupid. The only protection to be found,
singular as it may be thought, is in a couple of bottles of
the oldest Jamaica rum in the British Isles.'

'Rum?' cried Lady Busshe.

'The liquor of the Royal Navy, my lady. And with
your permission, I '11 relate the tale in proof of it. I had a
friend engaged to a young lady, niece of an old sea-captain
of the old school, the Benbow school, the wooden leg and
pigtail school; a perfectly salt old gentleman with a
pickled tongue, and a dash of brine in every deed he com-
mitted. He looked rolled over to you by the last wave on
the shore, sparkling : he was Neptune's own for humour.
And when his present to the bride was opened, sure
enough there lay a couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica
rum in the British Isles, born before himself, and his father
to boot. 'Tis a fabulous spirit I beg you to believe in, my
lady, the sole merit of the story being its portentous
veracity. The bottles were tied to make them appear
twins, as they both had the same claim to seniority. And
there was a label on them, telling their great age, to main-
tain their identity. They were in truth a pair of patri-
archal bottles rivalling many of the biggest houses in the
kingdom for antiquity. They would have made the
donkey that stood between the two bundles of hay look
at them with obliquity : supposing him to have, for an
animal, a rum taste, and a turn for hilarity. Wonderful
old bottles ! So, on the label, just over the date, was
written large: Uncle Benjamin's Wedding-Peesent
TO HIS niece Bessy. Poor Bessy shed tears of disappoint-
ment and indignation enough to float the old gentleman
on his native element, ship and all. She vowed it was
done curmudgeonly to vex her, because her uncle hated
wedding-presents and had grunted at the exhibition of
cups and saucers, and this and that beautiful service, and
^pergnes and inkstands, mirrors, knives and forks.

154 THE EGOIST

dressing-cases, and the whole mighty category. She
protested, she flung herself about, she declared those two
ugly bottles should not join the exhibition in the dining-
room, where it was laid out for days, and the family ate
their meals where they could, on the walls, like flies.
But there was also Uncle Benjamin's legacy on view, in
the distance, so it was ruled against her that the bottles
should have their place. And one fine morning down
came the family after a fearful row of the domestics;
shouting, screaming, cries for the police, and murder
topping all. What- did they see? They saw two
prodigious burglars extended along the floor, each with
one of the twin bottles in his hand, and a remainder of
the horror of the midnight hanging about his person like
a blown fog, sufficient to frighten them whilst they kicked
the rascals entirely intoxicated. Never was wilder dis-
order of wedding-presents, and not one lost ! — owing,
you '11 own, to Uncle Benjy's two bottles of ancient
Jamaica rum.'

Colonel De Craye concluded with an asseveration of the
truth of the story.

'A most provident far-sighted old sea-captain!'
exclaimed Mrs. Mountstuart, laughing at Lady Busshe
and Lady Culmer.

These ladies chimed in with her gingerly.

'And have you many more clever stories. Colonel De
Craye?' said Lady Busshe.

" ' Ah ! my lady, when the tree begins to count its gold
'tis nigh upon bankruptcy.'

'Poetic!' ejaculated Lady Culmer, spying at Miss
Middleton's rippled countenance, and noting that she
and Sir Willoughby had not interchanged word or
look.

'But that in the case of your Patteme Port a bottle
of it would outvalue the catalogue of nuptial presents,

CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE 155

Willoughby, I would recommend your stationing some
such constabulary to keep watch and ward,' said Dr.
Middleton as he filled his glass, taking Bordeaux in the
middle of the day, vmder a consciousness of virtue and its
reward to come at half-past seven in the evening.

'The dogs would require a dozen of that, sir,' said De
Craye.

'Then it is not to be thought of. Indeed, one!' Dr.
Middleton negatived the idea.

'We are no further advanced than when we began,'
observed Lady Busshe.

'If we are marked to go by stages,' Mrs. Mountstuart
assented.

'Why, then, we shall be called old coaches,' remarked
the colonel.

'You,' said Lady Culmer, 'have the advantage of us in
a closer acquaintance with Miss Middleton. You know
her tastes, and how far they have been consulted in the
little souvenirs already grouped somewhere, although not
yet for inspection. I am at sea. And here is Lady
Busshe in deadly alarm. There is plenty of time to
effect a change — ^though we are drawing on rapidly to
the fatal day. Miss Middleton. We are, we are very
near it. Oh ! yes. I am one who thinks that these little
affairs should be spoken of openly, without that ridiculous
bourgeois affectation, so that we may be sure of giving
satisfaction. It is a transaction, like everything else in
life. I for my part wish to be remembered favourably.
I put it as a test of breeding to speak of these things as
plain matter-of-fact. You marry; I wish you to have
something by you to remind you of me. What shall it
be? — useful or ornamental. For an ordinary household
the choice is not difficult. But where wealth abounds we
are in a dilemma.'

'And with persons of decided tastes,' added Lady

156 THE EGOIST

Busshe. 'I am really very unhappy,' she protested to
Clara.

Sir Willoughby dropped Lsetitia: Clara's look of a
sedate resolution to preserve silence on the topic of the
nuptial gifts, made a diversion imperative.

' Your porcelain was exquisitely chosen, and I profess to
be a connoisseur,' he said. 'I am poor in old Saxony, as
you know : I can match the county in Sevres, and my
inheritance of China will not easily be matched in the
country.'

'You may consider your Dragon vases a present from
young Crossjay,' said De Craye.

'How?'

' Hasn't he abstained from breaking them ? the capital
boy ! Porcelain and a boy in the house together, is a case
of prospective disaster fully equal to Flitch and a fly.'

' You should understand that my friend Horace — whose
wit is in this instance founded on another tale of a boy —
brought us a magnificent piece of porcelain, destroyed by
the capsizing of his conveyance from the station,' said Sir
Willoughby to Lady Busshe.

She and Lady Ciilmer gave out lamentable Ohs, while
Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel Patterne sketched the
incident. Then the lady visitors fixed their eyes in united
sympathy upon Clara: recovering from which, after a
contemplation of marble, Lady Busshe emphasized :
'No, you do not love porcelain, it is evident, Miss
Middleton.'

'I am glad to be assured of it,' said Lady Culmer.

'Oh! I know that face: I know that look,' Lady
Busshe affected to remark rallyingly : ' it is not the first
time I have seen it.'

Sir WUloughby smarted to his marrow. 'We will rout
these fancies of an over-scrupulous generosity, my dear
Lady Busshe.'

CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE 157

Her unwonted breach of delicacy in speaking publicly
of her present, and the vulgar persistency of her sticking
to the theme, very much perplexed him. And if he mis-
took her not, she had just alluded to the demoniacal
Constantia Durham. It might be that he had mistaken
her: he was on guard against his terrible sensitiveness.
Nevertheless it was hard to account for this behaviour of
a lady greatly his friend and admirer, a lady of birth.
And Lady Culmer as well! — ^likewise a lady of birth.
Were they in collusion? had they a suspicion? He
turned to Lsetitia's face for the antidote to his pain.

'Oh, but you are not one yet, and I shall require two
voices to convince me,' Lady Busshe rejoined after
another stare at the marble.

'Lady Busshe, I beg you not to think me ungrateful,'
said Clara.

'Fiddle! — ^gratitude! it is to please your taste, to
satisfy you. I care for gratitude as little as for flattery.'

'But gratitude is flattering,' said Vernon.

'Now, no metaphysics, Mr. Whitford.'

'But do care a bit for flattery, my lady,' said De Craye.
"Tis the finest of the Arts; we might call it moral
sculpture. Adepts in it can cut their friends to any shape
they like by practising it with the requisite skill. I
myself, poor hand as I am, have made a man act Solomon
by constantly praising his wisdom. He took a sagacious
turn at an early period of the dose. He weighed the
smallest question of his daily occasions with a deliberation
truly oriental. Had I pushed it, he 'd have hired a baby
and a couple of mothers to squabble over the undivided
morsel.'

' I shall hope for a day in London with you,' said Lady
Culmer to Clara.

'You did not forget the Queen of Sheba?' said Mrs.
Mountstuart to De Craye.

158 THE EGOIST

'With her appearance, the game has to be resigned to
her entirely/ he rejoined.

'That is,' Lady Culmer continued, 'if you do not despise
an old woman for your comrade on a shopping excursion.'

'Despise whom we fleece!' exclaimed Dr. Middleton.
'Oh, no. Lady Culmer, the sheep is sacred.'

'I am not so sure,' said Vernon.

'In what way, and to what extent, are you not so
sure?' said Dr. Middleton.

'The natural tendency is to scorn the fleeced.'

'I stand for the contrary. Pity, if you like: particu-
larly when they bleat.'

'This is to assume that makers of gifts are a fleeced
people : I demur,' said Mrs. Mountstuart.

'Madam, we are expected to give; we are incited to
give; you have dubbed it the fashion to give; and
the person refusing to give, or incapable of giving, may
anticipate that he will be regarded as benignly as a sheep
of a drooping and flaccid wool by the farmer, who is
reminded by the poor beast's appearance of a strange dog
that worried the flock. Even Captain Benjamin, as you
have seen, was unable to withstand the demand on him.
The hymenseal pair are licensed freebooters levying black-
mail on us; survivors of an uncivilized period. But in
taking without mercy, I venture to trust that the manners
of a happier sera instruct them not to scorn us. I appre-
hend that Mr. Whitford has a lower order of latrons in his
mind.'

'Permit me to say, sir, that you have not considered the
ignoble aspect of the fleeced,' said Vernon. 'I appeal to
the ladies: would they not, if they beheld an ostrich
walking down a Queen's Drawing-Room, clean-plucked,
despise him though they were wearing his plumes?'

"An extreme supposition, indeed,' said Dr. Middleton,
frowning over it : ' scarcely legitimately to be suggested.'

CONVERSATION AT A LUNCHEON-TABLE 159

'I think it fair, sir, as an instance.'

'Has the circumstance occurred, I would ask?'

'In life? a thousand times.'

'I fear so,' said Mrs. Mountstuart.

Lady Busshe showed symptoms of a desire to leave a
profitless table.

Vernon started up, glancing at the window.

'Did you see Crossjay?' he said to Clara.

' No ; I must, if he is there,' said she.

She made her way out, Vernon after her. They both
had the excuse.

'Which way did the poor boy go?' she asked him.

'I have not the slightest idea,' he replied. 'But
put on your bonnet, if you would escape that pair of
inquisitors.'

'Mr. Whitford, what humiliation!'

■I suspect you do not feel it the most, and the end of it
can't be remote,' said he.

Thus it happened that when Lady Busshe and
Lady Culmer quitted the dining-room, Miss Middleton
had spirited herself away from summoning voice and
messenger.

Sir WiUoughby apologized for her absence. 'If I could
be jealous, it would be of that boy Crossjay.'

'You are an excellent man, and the best of cousins,'
was Lady Busshe's enigmatical answer.

The exceedingly lively conversation at his table was
lauded by Lady Culmer.

'Though,' said she, 'what it all meant, and what was
the drift of it, I couldn't tell to save my life. Is it every
day the same with you here?'

' Very much.'

'How you must enjoy a spell of dulness !'

'If you said, simplicity and not talking for effect! I
generally cast anchor by Lsetitia Dale.'

160 THE EGOIST

'Ah!' Lady Busshe coughed. 'But the fact is, Mrs.
Mountstuart is mad for cleverness.'

'I think, my lady, Lsetitia Dale is to the full as clever
as any of the stars Mrs. Mountstuart assembles, or I.'

'Talkative cleverness, I mean.'

'In conversation as well. Perhaps you have not yet
given her a chance.'

'Yes, yes, she is clever, of course, poor dear. She is
looking better too.'

'Handsome, I thought,' said Lady Culmer.

'She varies,' observed Sir Willoughby.

The ladies took seat in their carriage and fell at once
into a close-bonnet colloquy. Not a single allusion had
they made to the wedding-presents after leaving the
luncheon-table. The cause of their visit was obvious.

CHAPTER XXXVII

CONTAINS CLEVEB FENCING AND INTIMATIONS OP THE
NEED FOR IT

That woman. Lady Busshe, had predicted, after the
event, iConstantia Durham's defection. She had also,
subsequent to Willoughby's departure on his travels,
uttered sceptical things concerning his rooted attachment
to Lsetitia Dale. In her bitter vulgarity, that beaten
rival of Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson for the leadership of
the county had taken his nose for a melancholy prognostic
of his fortunes; she had recently played on his name:
she had spoken the hideous English of his fate. Little as
she knew, she was alive to the worst interpretation of
appearances. No other eulogy occurred to her now than
to call him the best of cousins, because Vernon Whitford

CLEVER FENCING AND THE NEED FOR IT 161

was housed and clothed and fed by him. She had nothing
else to say for a man she thought luckless ! She was a
woman barren of wit, stripped of style, but she was wealthy
and a gossip — a forge of showering sparks — and she carried
Lady Culmer with her. The two had driven from his
house to spread the malignant rumour abroad: already
they blew the biting world on his raw wound. Neither of
them was like Mrs. Movmtstuart, a witty woman, who
could be hoodwinked; they were duU women, who
steadily kept on tteir own scent of the fact, and the only
way to confound such inveterate forces was, to be ahead
of them, and seize and transform the expected fact, and
astonish them, when they came up to him, with a totally
unanticipated fact.

'You see, you were in error, ladies.'

'And so we were. Sir Willoughby, and we acknowledge
it. We never could have guessed that !'

Thus the phantom couple in the future delivered them-
selves, as well they might at the revelation. He could
run far ahead.

Ay, but to combat these dolts, facts had to be en-
countered, deeds done, in groaning earnest. These
representatives of the pig-sconces of the population judged
by circumstances : airy shows and seems had no effect on
them. Dexterity of fence was thrown away.

A flying peep at the remorseless might of dulness in
compelling us to concrete performance counter to our
inclinations, if we would deceive its terrible instinct, gave
Willoughby for a moment the survey of a sage. His
intensity of personal feeling struck so vivid an illumina-
tion of mankind at intervals that he would have been
individually wise, had he not been moved by the source
of his accurate perceptions to a personal feeling of op-
position to his own sagacity. He loathed and he despised
the vision, so his mind had no benefit of it, though he

162 THE EGOIST

himself was whipped along. He chose rather (and the
choice is open to us all) to be flattered by the distinction
it revealed between himself and mankind.

But if he was not as others were, why was he discom-
fited, solicitous, miserable? To think that it should be
so, ran dead against his conqueror's theories wherein he
had been trained, which, so long as he gained success
awarded success to native merit, grandeur to the grand in
soul, as light kindles light : nature presents the example.
His early training, his bright beginning of life, had taught
him to look to earth's principal fruits as his natural portion,
and it was owing to a girl that he stood a mark for tongues,
naked, wincing at the possible malignity of a pair of
harridans. Why not whistle the girl away?

Why, then he would be free to enjoy, careless, younger
than his youth in the rebound to happiness !

And then would his nostrils begin to lift and sniff at the
creeping up of a thick pestiferous vapour. Then in that
volume of stench would he discern the sullen yellow eye of
malice. A malarious earth would hunt him all over it.
The breath of the world, the world's view of him, was
partly his vital breath, his view of himself. The ancestry
of the tortured man had bequeathed him this condition
of high civilization among their other bequests. Your
withered contracted Egoists of the hut and the grot reck
not of public opinion ; they crave but for liberty and
leisure to scratch themselves and soothe an excessive
scratch. Willoughby was expansive, a blooming one,
born to look down upon a tributary world, and to exult
in being looked to. Do we wonder at his consternation
in the prospect of that world's blowing foul on him?
Princes have their obligations to teach them they are
mortal, and the brilliant heir of a tributary world is
equally enchained by the homage it brings him; — more,
inasmuch as it is immaterial, elusive, not gathered by the

CLEVER FENCING AND THE NEED FOR IT 163

tax, and he cannot capitally punish the treasonable
recusants. Still must he be brilliant ; he must court his
people. He must ever, both in his reputation and his
person, aching though he be, show them a face and a leg.

The wounded gentleman shut himself up in his labora-
tory, where he could stride to and fro, and stretch out his
arms for physical relief, secure from observation of his
fantastical shapes, under the idea that he was meditating.
There was perhaps enough to make him fancy it in the
heavy fire of shots exchanged between his nerves and the
situation; there were notable flashes. He would not
avow that he was in an agony: it was merely a desire for
exercise.

Quintessence of worldliness, Mrs. Moimtstuart appeared
through his farthest window, swiugiug her skirts on a turn
at the end of the lawn, with Horace De Craye smirking
beside her. And the woman's vaimted penetration was
unable to detect the histrionic Irishism of the fellow. Or
she liked him for his acting and nonsense ; nor she only.
The voluble beast was created to snare women. WU-
loughby became smitten with an adoration of stedfast-
ness in women. The incarnation of that divine quality
crossed his eyes. She was clad in beauty.

A horrible nondescript convulsion composed of yawn
and groan drove him to his instruments, to avert a renewal
of the shock; and while arranging and fixing them for
their imwonted task, he compared himself advantageously
with men Mke Vernon and De Craye, and others of the
county, his fellows ia the hunting-field and on the Magis-
trate's bench, who neither understood nor cared for solid
work, beneficial practical work, the work of Science.

He was obhged to rehnquish it : his hand shook.

'Experiments will not advance much at this rate,' he
said, casting the noxious retardation on his enemies.

It was not to be contested that he must speak with Mrs.

164 THE EGOIST

Mountstuart, however he might shrink from the trial of
his facial muscles. Her not coming to him seemed
ominous : nor was her behaviour at the luncheon-table
quite obscure. She had evidently instigated the gentle-
men to cross and counter-chatter Lady Busshe and Lady
Culmer. For what purpose ?

Clara's features gave the answer.

They were implacable. And he could be the same.

In the solitude of his room he cried right out : ' I swear
it, I wUl never yield her to Horace De Craye ! She shall
feel some of my torments, and try to get the better of
them by knowing she deserves them.' He had spoken it,
and it was an oath upon the record.

Desire to do her intolerable hurt became an ecstasy
in his veins, and produced another stretching fit, that
terminated in a violent shake of the body and hmbs;
during which he was a spectacle for Mrs. Mountstuart at
one of the windows. He laughed as he went to her, say-
ing : ' No, no work to-day ; it won't be done, positively
refuses.'

i- 'I am taking the Professor away,' said she; 'he is
fidgety about the cold he caught.'

Sir Willoughby stepped out to her. ' I was trying at a
bit of work for an hour, not to be idle all day.'

'You work in that den of yours every day?'

' Never less than an hour, if I can snatch it.'

' It is a wonderful resource ! '

The remark set him throbbing and thinking that a pro-
longation of his crisis exposed him to the approaches of
some organic malady, possibly heart-disease.

'A habit,' he said. 'In there I throw off the world.'

'We shall see some results i<n due time.'

'I promise none: I like to be abreast of the real
knowledge of my day, that is all.'

'And a pearl among country gentlemen!'

CLEVER FENCING AND THE NEED FOR IT 165

'In your gracious consideration, my dear lady. Gene-
rally speaking, it would be more adviseable to become a
chatterer and keep an anecdotal note-book. I could not
do it, simply because I could not live with my own empti-
ness for the sake of making an occasional display of fire-
works. I aim at solidity. It is a narrow aim, no doubt ;
not much appreciated.'

'Lsetitia Dale appreciates it.'

A smile of enforced ruefulness, like a leaf curling in heat,
wrinkled his mouth.

Why did she not speak of her conversation with
Qara?

' Have they caught Crossjay ? ' he said.

'Apparently they are giving chase to him.'

The UkeUhood was, that Clara had been overcome by
timidity.

'Must you leave us?'

'I think it prudent to take Professor Crooklyn away.'

'He stiU . . . ?'

'The extraordinary resemblance!'

'A word aside to Dr. Middleton will dispel that.'

'You are thoroughly good.'

This hateful encomium of commiseration transfixed
him. Then, she knew of his calamity !

' Philosophical,' he said, ' would be the proper term, I
think.'

'Colonel De Craye, by the way, promises me a visit
when he leaves you.'

'To-morrow?'

'The earlier the better. He is too captivating; he is
delightful. He won me in five minutes. I don't accuse
him. Nature gifted him to cast the spell. We are weak
women, Sir WUloughby.'

She knew !

'Like to like : the witty to the witty, ma'am.'

166 THE EGOIST

'You won't compliment me with a little bit of
jealousy?'

'I forbear from complimenting him.'

'Be philosophical, of course, if you have the philo-
sophy.'

'I pretend to it. Probably I suppose myself to succeed
because I have no great requirement of it ; I cannot say.
We are riddles to ourselves.'

Mrs. Mountstuart pricked the turf with the point of her
parasol. She looked down and she looked up.

'Well?' said he to her eyes.

' Well, and where is Lsetitia Dale ? '

He turned about to show his face elsewhere.

When he fronted her again, she looked very fixedly, and
set her head shaking.

'It will not do, my dear Sir Willoughby!'

'What?'

'It.'

' I never could solve enigmas.'

'Playing ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum, then. Things have
gone far. All parties would be happier for an excursion.
Send her home.'

'Lsetitia? I can't part with her.'

Mrs. Mountstuart put a tooth on her under-lip as her
head renewed its brushing negative.

' In what way can it be hurtful that she should be here,
ma'am?' he ventured to persist.

'Think.'

'She is proof.'

'Twice!'

The word was big artillery. He tried the affectation
of a staring stupidity. She might have seen his heart
thump, and he quitted the mask for an agreeable
grimace.

'She is inaccessible. She is my friend. I guarantee

CLEVER FENCING AND THE NEED FOR IT 167

her, on my honour. Have no fear for her. I beg you to
have confidence in me. I would perish rather. No soul
on earth is to be compared with her.'

Mrs. Mountstuart repeated 'Twice!'

The low monosyllable, musically spoken in the same
tone of warning of a gentle ghost, rolled a thunder that
maddened him, but he dared not take it up to fight against
it on plain terms.

'Is it for my sake?' he said.

'It will not do, Sir Willoughby!'

She spurred him to a frenzy.

' My dear Mrs. Mountstuart, you have been listening to
tales. I am not a tyrant. I am one of the most easy-
going of men. Let us preserve the forms due to society :
I say no more. As for poor old Vernon, people call me
a good sort of cousin ; I should like to see him comfort-
ably married; decently married this time. I have pro-
posed to contribute to his establishment. I mention it
to show that the case has been practically considered.
He has had a tolerably souring experience of the state;
he might be inclined if, say, you took him in hand, for
another venture. It 's a demoralizing lottery. However,
Government sanctions it.'

'But, Sir Willoughby, what is the use of my taking
him in hand, when, as you tell me, Lsetitia Dale holds
back?'

' She certainly does.'

'Then we are talking to no purpose, unless you imder-
take to melt her.'

He suffered a lurking smile to kindle to some strength of
meaning.

'You are not over-considerate in committing me to
such an office.'

'You are afraid of the danger?' she all but sneered.

Sharpened by her tone, he said : 'I have such a love of

168 THE EGOIST

stedfastness of character, that I should be a poor ad-
vocate in the endeavour to break it. And frankly, I
know the danger. I saved my honour when I made the
attempt : that is all I can say.'

'Upon my word,' Mrs. Mountstuart threw back her
head to let her eyes behold him summarily over their fine
aquiline bridge, 'you have the heart of mystification,
my good friend.'

'Abandon the idea of Laetitia Dale.'

'And marry your cousin Vernon to whom? Where
are we ? '

'As I said, ma'am, I am an easy-going man. I really
have not a spice of the tyrant in me. An intemperate
creature held by the collar may have that notion of me,
while pulling to be released as promptly as it entered the
noose. But I do strictly and sternly object to the scandal
of violent separations, open breaches of solemn engage-
ments, a public rupture. Put it that I am the cause, I
will not consent to a violation of decorum. Is that
clear? It is just possible for things to be arranged so
that all parties may be happy in their way without much
hubbub. Mind, it is not I who have willed it so. I am,
and I am forced to be, passive. But I will not be ob-
structive.'

He paused, waving his hand to signify the vanity of the
more that might be said.

Some conception of him, dashed by incredulity, excited
the lady's intelligence.

'Well!' she exclaimed, 'you have planted me in the
land of conjecture. As my husband used to say, I don't
see light, but I think I see the lynx that does. We won't
discuss it at present. I certainly must be a younger
woman than I suppose, for I am learning hard. — Here
comes the Professor, buttoned up to the ears, and Dr.
Middleton flapping in the breeze. There will be a cough.

CLEVER FENCING AND THE NEED FOR IT 169

and a footnote referring to the young lady at the station,
if we stand together, so please order my carriage.'

'You found Clara complacent? roguish?'

'I will call to-morrow. You have simplified my task,
Sir Willoughby, very much: that is, assuming that I
have not entirely mistaken you. I am so far in the dark,
that I have to help myself by recollecting how Lady
Busshe opposed my view of a certain matter formerly.
Scepticism is her forte. It will be the very oddest thing
if after all ... ! No, I shall own, romance has not
departed. Are you fond of dupes ? '

' I detest the race.'

'An excellent answer. I could pardon you for it.'
She refrained from adding: 'If you are making one of
me.'

Sir Willoughby went to ring for her carriage.

She knew. That was palpable: Clara had betrayed
him. 'The earlier Colonel De Craye leaves Patterne Hall
the better ' : she had said that : and, ' all parties would
be happier for an excursion.' She knew the position of
things and she guessed the remainder. But what she
did not know, and could not diviae, was the man who
fenced her. He speculated further on the witty and the
dull. These latter are the redoubtable body. They will
have facts to convince them; they had, he confessed it
to himself, precipitated him into the novel sphere of his
dark hints to Mrs. Mountstuart; from which the utter
darkness might allow him to escape, yet it embraced him
singularly, and even pleasantly, with the sense of a fact
established.

It embraced him even very pleasantly. There was an
end to his tortures. He sailed on a tranquil sea, the
husband of a stedfast woman — ^no rogue. The exceed-
ing beauty of stedfastness in women clothed Lsetitia
in graces Clara could not match. A tried stedfast

170 THE EGOIST

woman is the one jewel of the sex. She points to her
husband Hke the sunflower; her love illuminates him;
she lives in him, for him ; she testifies to his worth ; she
drags the world to his feet; she leads the chorus of his
praises; she justifies him in his own esteem! Surely
there is not on earth such beauty !

If we have to pass through anguish to discover it and
cherish the peace it gives, to clasp it, calling it ours, is a
full reward.

Deep in his reverie, he said his adieux to Mrs. Moimt-
stuart, and strolled up the avenue behind the carriage-
wheels, unwilling to meet Lsetitia till he had exhausted
the fresh savour of the cud of fancy.

Supposing it done ! —

It would be generous on his part. It would redound to
his credit.

His home would be a fortress, impregnable to tongues.
He woiild have divine security in his home.

One who read and knew and worshipped him would be
sitting there starlike: sitting there, awaiting him, his
fixed star.

It would be marriage with a mirror, with an echo;
marriage with a shining mirror, a choric echo.

It would be marriage with an intellect, with a fine
understanding; to make his home a fountain of repeat-
able wit : to make his dear old Patteme Hall the luminary
of the county.

He revolved it as a chant : with anon and anon involun-
tarily a discordant animadversion on Lady Busshe. His
attendant imps heard the angry inward cry.

Forthwith he set about painting Lsetitia in delectable
human colours, like a miniature of the past century,
reserving her ideal figure for his private satisfaction.
The world was to bow to her visible beauty, and he gave
her enamel and glow, a taller statue, a swimming air, a

CLEVER FENCING AND THE NEED FOR IT 171

transcendancy that exorcised the image of the old witch
who had driven him to this.

The result in him was, that Lsetitia became humanly
and avowedly beautiful. Her dark eyelashes on the
pallor of her cheeks lent their aid to the transformation,
which was a necessity to him, so it was performed. He
received the waxen impression.

His retinue of imps had a revel. We hear wonders of
men, and we see a lifting up of hands in the world. The
wonders would be explained, and never a hand need to
interject, if the mystifying man were but accompanied
and reported of by that monkey-eyed confraternity.
They spy the heart and its twists.

The heart is the magical gentleman. None of them
would follow where there was no heart. The twists of the
heart are the comedy.

' The secret of the heart is its pressing love of self says
the Book.

By that secret the mystery of the organ is legible : and
a comparison of the heart to the mountain rillet is taken
up to show us the unbaffled force of the little chaimel in
seeking to swell its volume, strenuously, sinuously, ever
in pursuit of self; the busiest as it is the most single-
aiming of forces on our earth. And we are directed to
the sinuosities for the posts of observation chiefly in-
structive.

Few maintain a stand there. People see, and they
rush away to interchange liftings of hands at the
sight, instead of patiently studying the phenomenon
of energy.

Consequently a man in love with one woman, and in all
but absolute consciousness, behind the thinnest of veils,
preparing his mind to love another, will be barely credible.
The particular hunger of the forceful but adaptable heart
is the key of him. Behold the mountain rillet, become

172 THE EGOIST

a brook, become a torrent, how it inarms a handsome
boulder : yet if the stone will not go with it, on it hurries,
pursuing self in extension, down to where perchance a
dam has been raised of a sufficient depth to enfold and
keep it from inordinate restlessness. Laetitia represented
this peaceful restraining space in prospect.

But she was a faded young woman. He was aware of
it; and systematically looking at himself with her up-
turned orbs, he accepted her benevolently, as a God
grateful for worship, and used the divinity she imparted
to paint and renovate her. His heart required her so.
The heart works the springs of imagination ; imagination
received its commission from the heart, and was a cunning
artist.

Cunning to such a degree of seductive genius that the
masterpiece it offered to his contemplation enabled him
simultaneously to gaze on Clara and think of Lsetitia.
Clara came through the park-gates with Vernon, a
brilliant girl indeed, and a shallow one: a healthy
creature, and an animal; attractive, but capricious, im-
patient, treacherous, foul ; a woman to drag men through
the mud. She approached.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

IN WHICH WE TAKE A STEP TO THE CENTEE OF EGOISM

They met ; Vernon soon left them.

'You have not seen Crossjay?' Willoughby inquired.

'No,' said Clara. 'Once more I beg you to pardon
him. He spoke falsely, owing to his poor boy's idea of
chivalry.'

'The chivalry to the sex which commences in lies, ends

TO THE CENTRE OF EGOISM 173

by creating the woman's hero, whom we see about the
world and in certain Courts of Law.'

His ability to silence her was great : she could not reply
to speech like that.

'You have,' said he, 'made a confidante of Mrs. Mount-
stuart.'

'Yes.'

'This is your purse.'

'I thank you.'

'Professor Crooklyn has managed to make your father
acquainted with your project. That, I suppose, is the
railway ticket in the fold of the purse. He was assured
at the station that you had taken a ticket to London,
and would not want the fly.'

'It is true. I was foolish.'

'You have had a pleasant walk with Vernon — ^turning
me in and out?'

'We did not speak of you. You aUude to what he
would never consent to.'

' He 's an honest fellow, in his old-fashioned way. He 's
a secret old fellow. Does he ever talk about his wife
to you?'

Clara dropped her purse, and stooped and picked
it up.

'I know nothing of Mr. Whitford's affairs,' she said,
and she opened the purse and tore to pieces the railway-
ticket.

'The story 's a proof that romantic spirits do not fur-
nish the most romantic history. You have the word
"chivalry" frequently on your lips. He chivalrously
married the daughter of the lodging-house where he re-
sided before I took him. We obtained information of
the auspicious union in a newspaper report of Mrs. Whit-
ford's drunkenness and rioting at a London railway ter-
minus — ^probably the one whither your ticket would have

174 THE EGOIST

taken you yesterday, for I heard the lady was on her way
to us for supplies, the connubial larder being empty.'

'I am sorry; I am ignorant; I have heard nothing;
I know nothing,' said Clara.

' You are disgusted. But half the students and authors
you hear of marry in that way. And very few have
Vernon's luck.'

'She had good qualities?' asked Clara.

Her under-lip hung.

It looked like disgust ; he begged her not to indulge the
feeling.

'Literary men, it is notorious, even with the entry to
society, have no taste in women. The housewife is their
object. Ladies frighten and would, no doubt, be an
annoyance and hindrance to them at home.'

'You said he was fortunate.'
, 'You have a kindness for him.'

'I respect him.'

'He is a friendly old fellow in his awkward fashion;
honourable, and so forth. But a disreputable alliance of
that sort sticks to a man. The world will talk. Yes, he
was fortunate so far ; he fell into the mire and got out of
it. Were he to marry again . . .'

'She . . .'

'Died. Do not be startled; it was a natiu"al death.
She responded to the sole wishes left to his family. He
buried the woman, and I received him. I took him on
my tour. A second marriage might cover the first :
there would be a buzz about the old business : the
woman's relatives write to him still, try to bleed him,
I dare say. However, now you understand his gloomi-
ness. I don't imagine he regrets his loss. He probably
sentimentalizes, like most men when they are well rid
of a burden. You must not think the worse of him.'

'I do not,' said Clara.

TO THE CENTRE OF EGOISM 175

'I defend him whenever the matter 's discussed.'

' I hope you do.'

'Without approving his folly. I can't wash him clean.'

They were at the Hall-doors. She waited for any per-
sonal communications he might be pleased to make, and
as there was none, she ran upstairs to her room.

He had tossed her to Vernon in his mind not only pain-
lessly, but with a keen acid of satisfaction. The heart
is the wizard.

Next he bent his deliberate steps to Lsetitia.

The mind was guilty of some hesitation ; the feet went
forward.

She was working at an embroidery by an open window.
Colonel De Craye leaned outside, and Willoughby par-
doned her air of demure amusement, on hearing him say :
' No, I have had one of the pleasantest half-hours of my
life, and would rather idle here, if idle you will have it,
than employ my faculties on horse-back.'

'Time is not lost in conversing with Miss Dale,' said
Willoughby.

The light was tender to her complexion where she sat in
partial shadow.

De Craye asked whether Crossjay had been caught.
Lsetitia murmured a kind word for the boy. Willoughby
examined her embroidery.

The ladies Eleanor and Isabel appeared.

They invited her to take carriage-exercise with them.

Lsetitia did not immediately answer, and Willoughby
remarked: 'Miss Dale has been reproving Horace for
idleness, and I recommend you to enlist him to do duty,
while I relieve him here.'

The ladies had but to look at the colonel. He was at
their disposal, if they would have him. He was marched
to the carriage.

Lsetitia plied her threads.

176 THE EGOIST

'Colonel De Craye spoke of Crossjay,' she said. 'May
I hope you have forgiven the poor boy, Sir Willoughby ? '

He replied : ' Plead for him.'

'I wish I had eloquence.'

' In my opinion you have it.'

'If he offends, it is never from meanness. At school,
among comrades, he would shine. He is in too strong
a light; his feelings and his moral nature are over-
excited.'

'That was not the case when he was at home with you.'

' I am severe ; I am stern.'

'A Spartan mother!'

'My system of managing a boy would be after that
model: except in this: he should always feel that he
could obtain forgiveness.'

'Not at the expense of justice?'

'Ah! young creatures are not to be arraigned before
the higher Courts. It seems to me perilous to terrify
their imaginations. If we do so, are we not likely to
produce the very evil we are combating? The alter-
nations for the young should be school and home : and
it should be in their hearts to have confidence that for-
giveness alternates with discipline. They are of too
tender an age for the rigours of the world; we are in
danger of hardening them. I prove to you that I am not
possessed of eloquence. You encourage me to speak.
Sir Willoughby.'

'You speak wisely, Lsetitia.'

'I think it true. Will not you reflect on it? You
have only to do so, to forgive him. I am growing bold
indeed, and shall have to beg forgiveness for myself.'

'You still write? you continue to work with your
pen?' said Willoughby.

'A little; a very little.'

' I do not like you to squander yourself, waste yourself.

TO THE CENTRE OF EGOISM 177

on the public. You are too precious to feed the beast.
Giving out incessantly must end by attenuating. Re-
serve yourself for your friends. Why should they be
robbed of so much of you? Is it not reasonable to
assume that by lying fallow you would be more enriched
for domestic life? Oandidly, had I authority I would
confiscate your pen: I would "away with that bauble."
You will not often find me quoting Cromwell, but his
words apply in this instance. I would say rather, that
lancet. Perhaps it is the more correct term. It bleeds
you, it wastes you. For what? For a breath of fame !'

'I write for money.'

'And there — I would say of another — you subject
yourself to the risk of mental degradation. Who knows ?
— moral ! Trafficking the brains for money, must bring
them to the level of the purchasers in time. I confiscate
your pen, Lsetitia.'

'It will be to confiscate your own gift, SirWilloughby.'

'Then that proves — ^will you tell me the date?'

' You sent me a gold pen-holder on my sixteenth birth-
day.'

'It proves my utter thoughtlessness then, and later.
And later!'

He rested an elbow on his knee and covered his eyes,
murmuring in that profound hollow which is haunted by
the voice of a contrite past: 'And later!'

The deed could be done. He had come to the con-
clusion that it could be done, though the effort to har-
monize the figure sitting near him, with the artistic figure
of his purest pigments, had cost him labour and a blinking
of the eyelids. That also could be done. Her pleasant
tone, sensible talk, and the light favouring her complexion,
helped him in his effort. She was a sober cup ; sober and
wholesome. Deliriousness is for adolescence. The men
who seek intoxicating cups are men who invite their fates.

178 THE EGOIST

Curiously, yet as positively as things can be affirmed,
the husband of this woman would be able to boast of her
virtues and treasures abroad, as he could not — ^impossible
to say why not — boast of a beautiful wife or a blue-
stocking wife. One of her merits as a wife would be this
extraordinary neutral merit of a character that demanded
colour from the marital hand, and would take it.

Lsetitia had not to learn that he had much to distress
him. Her wonder at his exposure of his grief counter-
acted a fluttering of vague alarm. She was nervous;
she sat in expectation of some burst of regrets or of
passion.

'I may hope that you have pardoned Crossjay?'she
said.

'My friend,' said he, uncovering his face, 'I am
governed by principles. Convince me of an error, I shall
not obstinately pursue a premeditated course. But you
know me. Men who have not principles to rule their
conduct are — ^well, they are unworthy of a half hour of
companionship with you. I wUl speak to you to-night.
I have letters to despatch. To-night: at twelve: in
the room where we spoke last. Or await me in the draw-
ing-room. I have to attend on my guests till late.'

He bowed ; he was in a hurry to go.

The deed could be done. It must be done ; it was his
destiny.

CHAPTER XXXIX

IN THE HEART OF THE EGOIST

But already he had begun to regard the deed as his
executioner. He dreaded meeting Clara. The folly of
having retained her stood before him. How now to look

IN THE HEART OF THE EGOIST 179

on her and keep a sane resolution unwavering? She
tempted to the insane. Had she been away, he could
have walked through the performance composed by the
sense of doing a duty to himself : perhaps faintly hating
the poor wretch he made happy at last, kind to her in
a manner, polite. Clara's presence in the house previous
to the deed, and oh, heaven ! after it, threatened his wits.
Pride ? He had none ; he cast it down for her to trample
it ; he caught it back ere it was trodden on. Yes ; he
had pride : he had it as a dagger in his breast : his pride
was his misery. But he was too proud to submit to
misery. 'What I do is right.' He said the words, and
rectitude smoothed his path, till the question clamoured
for answer: Would the world countenance and endorse
his pride in Lsetitia? At one time, yes. And now?
Clara's beauty ascended, laid a beam on him.

We are on board the labouring vessel of humanity in a
storm, when cries and countercries ring out, disorderliness
mixes the crew, and the fury of self-preservation divides :
this one is for the ship, that one for his life. Clara was
the former to him, Lsetitia the latter. But what if there
might not be greater safety in holding tenaciously to
Clara than in casting her off for Lsetitia? No, she had
done things to set his pride throbbing in the quick. She
had gone bleeding about first to one, then to another;
she had betrayed him to Vernon, and to Mrs. Mount-
stuart ; a look in the eyes of Horace De Craye said, to him
as well : to whom not ? He might hold to her for venge-
ance; but that appetite was short-lived in him if it
ministered nothing to his purposes.

' I discard all idea of vengeance,' he said, and thrilled
burningly to a smart in his admiration of the man who
could be so magnanimous vmder mortal injury: for the
more admirable he, the more pitiable. He drank a drop
or two of self-pity like a poison, repelling the assaults of

180 THE EGOIST

public pity. Clara must be given up. It must be seen by
the world that, as he felt, the thing he did was right.
Laocoon of his own serpents, he struggled to a certain
magnificence of attitude in the muscular net of constric-
tions he flung around himself. Clara must be given up.
bright Abominable ! She must be given up : but not
to one whose touch of her would be darts in the blood of
the yielder, snakes in his bed : she must be given up to an
extinguisher; to be the second wife of an old-fashioned
semi-recluse, disgraced in his first. And were it publicly
known that she had been cast off, and had fallen on old
Vernon for a refuge, and part in spite, part in shame,
part in desperation, part in a fit of good sense under the
circumstances, espoused him, her beauty would not in-
fluence the world in its judgment. The world would
know what to think. As the instinct of self-preservation
whispered to Willoughby, the world, were it- requisite,
might be taught to think what it assuredly would not
think if she should be seen tripping to the altar with
Horace De Craye. Self-preservation, not vengeance,
breathed that whisper. He glanced at her iniquity for
a justification of it, without any desire to do her a per-
manent hurt : he was highly civilized : but with a strong
intention to give her all the benefit of the scandal, sup-
posing a scandal, or ordinary tattle.

'And so he handed her to his cousin and secretary,
Vernon Whitford, who opened his mouth and shut his
eyes.'

You hear the world? How are we to stop it from
chattering? Enough that he had no desire to harm her.
Some gentle anticipations of her being tarnished were
imperative; they came spontaneously to him; other-
wise the radiance of that bright Abominable in loss would
have been insufferable; he could not have borne it; he
could never have surrendered her.

IN THE HEART OF THE EGOIST 181

Moreover, a happy present effect was the result. He
conjured up the anticipated chatter and shrug of the
world so vividly that her beauty grew hectic with the
stain, bereft of its formidable magnetism. He could
meet her calmly; he had steeled himself. Purity in
women was his principal stipulation, and a woman puffed
at, was not the person to cause him tremours.

Consider him indulgently: the Egoist is the Son of
Himself. He is likewise the Father. And the son loves
the father, the father the son ; they reciprocate affection
through the closest of ties; and shall they view be-
haviour unkindly wounding either of them, not for each
other's dear sake abhorring the criminal? They would
not injure you, but they cannot consent to see one another
suffer or crave in vain. The two rub together in sym-
pathy besides relationship to an intenser one. Are you,
without much offending, sacrificed by them, it is on the
altar of their mutual love, to filial piety or paternal tender-
ness : the younger has offered a dainty morsel to the
elder, or the elder to the yoimger. Absorbed in their
great example of devotion, they do not think of you.
They are beautiful.

Yet is it most true that the younger has the passions of
youth: whereof will come division between them; and
this is a tragic state. They are then pathetic. This
was the state of Sir WUloughby lending ear to his elder,
until he submitted to bite at the fruit proposed to him —
with how wry a mouth the venerable senior chose not to
mark. At least, as we perceive, a half of him was ripe
of wisdom in his own interests. The cruder half had
but to be obedient to the leadership of sagacity for his
interests to be secured, and a filial disposition assisted
him; painfully indeed; but the same rare quality
directed the good gentleman to swallow his pain. That
• the son should bewail his fate were a dishonour to his

182 THE EGOIST

sire. He reverenced, and submitted. Thus, to say,
consider him indulgently, is too much an appeal for
charity on behalf of one requiring but initial anatomy —
a slicing in halves — ^to exonerate, perchance exalt him.
The Egoist is our fountain-head, primeval man: the
primitive is born again, the elemental reconstituted.
Born again, into new conditions, the primitive may be
highly polished of men, and forfeit nothing save the
roughness of his original nature. He is not only his own
father, he is ours; and he is also our son. We have
produced him, he us. Such were we, to such are we
returning : not other, sings the poet, than one who toil-
fully works his shallop against the tide, 'si brachia forte
remisit' : — ^let him haply relax the labour of his arms,
however high up the stream, and back he goes, 'in pejus,'
to the early principle of our being, with seeds and plants,
that are as carelessly weighed in the hand and as indis-
criminately husbanded as our humanity.

Poets on the other side may be cited for an assurance
that the primitive is not the degenerate : rather is he a
sign of the indestructibility of the race, of the ancient
energy in removing obstacles to individual growth; a
sample of what we would be, had we his concentrated
power. He is the original innocent, the pure simple.
It is we who have fallen; we have melted into Society,
diluted our essence, dissolved. He stands in the midst
monumentally, a landmark of the tough and honest old
Ages, with the symbolic alphabet of striking arms and
running legs, our early language, scrawled over his person,
and the glorious first flint and arrow-head for his crest :
at once the spectre of the Kitchen-midden and our ripest
issue.

But Society is about him. The occasional spectacle of
the primitive dangling on a rope, has impressed his mind
with the strength on his natural enemy: from which

IN THE HEART OF THE EGOIST 183

uncongenial sight he has turned shuddering hardly less to
behold the blast that is blown upon a reputation where
one has been disrespectful of the many. By these means,
through meditation on the contrast of circimistances in
life, a pulse of imagination has begun to stir, and he has
entered the upper sphere, or circle of spiritual Egoism:
he has become the civUized Egoist; primitive still, as
sure as man has teeth, but developed in his manner of
using them.

Degenerate or not (and there is no just reason to sup-
pose it). Sir Willoughby was a social Egoist, fiercely
imaginative in whatsoever concerned him. He had dis-
covered a greater realm than that of the sensual appetites,
and he rushed across and around it in his conquering
period with an Alexander's pride. On these wind-like
journeys he had carried Constantia, subsequently Clara;
and however it may have been in the case of Miss Durham,
in that of Miss Middleton it is almost certain she caught
her glimpse of his interior from sheer fatigue in hearing
him discourse of it. What he revealed was not the cause
of her sickness : women can bear revelations — they are
exciting: but the monotonousness. He slew imagina-
tion. There is no direr disaster in love than the death of
imagination. He dragged her through the labyrinths of
his penetralia, in his hungry coveting to be loved more
and still more, more stUl, until imagination gave up the
ghost, and he talked to her plain hearing like a monster.
It must have been that; for the spell of the primitive
upon women is masterful up to the time of contact.

'And so he handed her to his cousin and secretary,
Vernon Whitford, who opened his mouth and shut his
eyes.'

The urgent question was, how it was to be accomplished.
Willoughby worked at the subject with all his power of
concentration: a power that had often led him to feel

184 THE EGOIST

and say, that as a barrister, a diplomatist, or a general,
he would have won his grades : and granting him a per-
sonal interest in the business, he might have achieved
eminence : he schemed and fenced remarkably well.

He projected a scene, following expressions of anxiety
on account of old Vernon and his future settlement : and
then — Clara maintaining her doggedness, to which he was
now so accustomed that he could not conceive a change
in it — says he : 'If you determine on breaking, I give you
back your word on one condition.' Whereupon she starts :
he insists on her promise: she declines: affairs resume
their former footing; she frets, she begs for the dis-
closure : he flatters her by telling her his desire to keep
her in the family; she is unUluminated, but strongly
moved by curiosity: he philosophizes on marriage —
'What are we? poor creatures! we must get through
life as we can, doing as much good as we can to those we
love; and think as you please, I love old Vernon. Am
I not giving you the greatest possible proof of it?' She
will not see. Then flatly out comes the one condition.
That and no other. 'Take Vernon and I release you.'
She refuses. Now ensues the debate, all the oratory
being with him. 'Is it because of his unfortunate first
marriage? You assured me you thought no worse of
him' : etc. She declares the proposal revolting. He
can distinguish nothing that should offend her in a pro-
posal to make his cousin happy if she will not him.
Irony and sarcasm relieve his emotions, but he con-
vinces her he is dealing plainly and intends generosity.
She is confused ;• she speaks in maiden fashion.

He touches again on Vernon's early escapade. She
does not enjoy it. The scene closes with his bidding her
reflect on it, and remember the one condition of her
release. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, now reduced to
believe that he bums to be free, is then called in for an

IN THE HEART OF THE EGOIST 185

interview with Clara. His aunts Eleanor and Isabel
besiege her. Lsetitia in passionate earnest besieges her.
Her father is wrought on to besiege her. Finally Vernon
is attacked by Willoughby and Mrs. Mountstuart : — and
here, Willoughby chose to think, was the main difficulty.
But the girl has money ; she is agreeable ; Vernon likes
her; she is fond of his 'Alps/ they have tastes in com-
mon, he likes her father, and in the end he besieges her.
Will she yield? De Craye is absent. There is no other
way of shunning a marriage she is incomprehensibly but
frantically averse to. She is in the toils. Her father
will stay at Patteme Hall as long as his host desires it.
She hesitates, she is overcome ; in spite of a certain nausea
due to Vernon's preceding alliance, she yields.

Willoughby revolved the entire drama in Clara's
presence. It helped him to look on her coolly. Con-
ducting her to the dinner-table, he spoke of Crossjay, not
unkindly ; and at table he revolved the set of scenes with
a heated animation that took fire from the wine and the
face of his friend Horace, whUe he encouraged Horace to be
flowingly Irish. He nipped the fellow good-humouredly
once or twice, having never felt so friendly to him since
the day of his arrival; but the position of critic is in-
stinctively taken by men who do not flow : and Patteme
Port kept Dr. Middleton in a benevolent reserve when
Willoughby decided that something said by De Craye
was not new, and laughingly accused him of failing to
consult his anecdotal note-book for the double-cross to
his last sprightly sally. 'Your sallies are excellent,
Horace, but spare us your Aunt Sallies !' De Craye had
no repartee, nor did Dr. Middleton challenge a pun. We
have only to sharpen our wits to trip your seductive rattler
whenever we may choose to think proper ; and evidently,
if we condescended to it, we could do better than he.
The critic who has hatched a witticism is impelled to this

186 THE EGOIST

opinion. Judging by the smiles of the ladies, they
thought so too.

Shortly before eleven o'clock, Dr. Middleton made a
Spartan stand against the offer of another bottle of Port.
The regulation couple of bottles had been consumed in
equal partnership, and the Rev. Doctor and his host were
free to pay a ceremonial visit to the drawing-room, where
they were not expected. A piece of work of the elder
ladies, a silken boudoir sofa-rug, was being examined, with
high approval of the two younger. Vernon and Colonel
De Craye had gone out in search of Crossjay, one to Mr.
Dale's cottage, the other to call at the head and under-
gamekeepers. They were said to be strolling and smok-
ing, for the night was fine. Wnioughby left the room
and came back with the key of Crossjay's door in his
pocket. He foresaw that the delinquent might be of
service to him.

Lsetitia and Clara sang together. Lsetitia was flushed,
Clara pale. At eleven they saluted the ladies Eleanor and
Isabel. Willoughby said, 'Good night' to each of them,
contrasting as he did so the downcast look of Lsetitia with
Clara's frigid directness. He divined that they were off
to talk over their one object of common interest, Crossjay.
Saluting his aunts, he took up the rug, to celebrate their
diligence and taste ; and that he might make Dr. Middle-
ton impatient for bed, he provoked him to admire it, held
it out and laid it out, and caused the courteous old
gentleman some confusion in hitting on fresh terms of
commendation.

Before midnight the room was empty. Ten minutes
later, Willoughby paid it a visit, and found it untenanted
by the person he had engaged to be there. Vexed by his
disappointment, he paced up and down, and chanced
abstractedly to catch the rug in his hand; for what
purpose, he might well ask himself ; admiration of ladies'

MIDNIGHT 187

work, in their absence, was unlikely to occur to him.
Nevertheless the touch of the warm soft silk was meltiQgly
feminine. A glance at the mantelpiece clock told him
Lsetitia was twenty minutes behind the hour.

Her remissness might endanger all his plans, alter the
whole course of his life. The colours in which he painted
her were too hvely to last; the madness in his head
threatened to subside. Certain it was that he could not
be ready a second night for the sacrifice he had been about
to perform.

The clock was at the half hour after twelve. He flxmg
the silken thing on the central ottoman, extinguished the
lamps, and walked out of the room, charging the absent
Lsetitia to bear her misfortune with a consciousness of
deserving it.

CHAPTER XL

MIDNIGHT : SIR WILLOUGHBT AND LffiTITIA : WITH YOUNG
CROSSJAY UNDER A COVERLET

Young Crossjay was a glutton at holidays and never
thought of home till it was dark. The close of the day
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 Patteme again. On the other
hand, Miss Middleton had bidden 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

188 THE EGOIST

his adventures, delayed him, and a short cut, 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. Crossjay 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 had proved too much for the
tired youngster. Mary, the maid, got him to step as
firmly as he was able, and led him by the back-way to the
hall, bidding him creep noiselessly to bed. He under-
stood his position in the house, and though he could have
gone fast to sleep 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. Crossjay 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,
soft as 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 heard it with his ears, as he pursued the
fleetest dreams ever accorded 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, now it caused him to relax his pace ; he began to

MIDNIGHT 189

circle, and whirled closer round it, until, as at a blow, his
heart knocked, he tightened himself, thought of bolting,
and lay dead-still to throb and hearken.

' Oh ! Sir Willoughby,' a voice had said.

The accents were sharp with alarm.

'My friend ! my dearest !' was the answer.

'I came to speak of Crossjay.'

'Will you sit here, on the ottoman?'

'No, I cannot wait. I hoped I had heard Crossjay
return. I would rather not sit down. May I entreat you
to pardon him when he comes home ? '

'You, and you only, may do so. I permit none else.
Of Crossjay to-morrow.'

' He may be lying in the fields. We are anxious.'

'The rascal can take pretty good care of himself.'

' Crossjay is perpetually meeting accidents.'

' He shall be indemnified if he has had excess of punish-
ment.'

' 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 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 for the day of my
majority?

" The dawn^star has arisen

In plenitude of light . . ." '

'Do not repeat them, pray !' cried Laetitia with a gasp.

190 THE EGOIST

' I have repeated them to myself a thousand times : in
India, America, Japan : they were like our English sky-
lark carolling to me.

" My heart, now burst thy prison
With proud aerial flight! " '

' Oh ! I beg you will not force me to listen to nonsense
that I wrote when I was a child. No more of those most
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-jay to-night, allow me to retire.'

'You know me, and therefore you know my contempt
for verses, as a rule, Lsetitia. But not for yours to me.
Why should you call them foolish? They expressed
your feelings — I 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, Sir Willoughby ; I am far from being the
same.'

'We are all older, I trust wiser. I am, I will own;
much wiser. Wise at last ! I offer you my hand.'

She did not reply.

'I offer you my hand and name, Lsetitia!'

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
imreservedly, as I ask you to give your hand, I offer mine.
You are the mistress of Patterne Hall ; my wife ! '

She had not a word.

MIDNIGHT 191

'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 dis-
covery that I caimot 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 word.
Have always loved, I said. You carry in your bosom the
magnet of constancy, and I, in spite of apparent devia-
tions, declare to you that I have never ceased to be
sensible of the attraction. And now there is not an
impediment. We two against the world! we are one.
Let me confess to an old foible — perfectly youthful, and
you will ascribe it to youth : once I desired to absorb.
I mistrusted; that was the reason: I perceive it. You
teach me the difference of an alliance with a lady of in-
tellect. The pride I have in you, Laetitia, definitely cures
me of that insane passion — call it an insatiable hunger.
I recognize it as a 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 Lsetitia, do
not regard love as a selfishne^. 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 . . .'

192 THE EGOIST

Lsetitia burst forth with, 'No!'

'I do not know you?' said he, searchingly mellifluous.

'Hardly.'

'How not?'

'I am changed.'

'In what way?'

'Deeply.'

'Sedater?'

' Materially.'

'Colour will come back: have no fear; I promise it.
If you imagine you want renewing, / have the specific, I,
my love, I!'

' Forgive me — ^will you tell me, Sir Willoughby, whether
you have broken with Miss Middleton?'

' Rest satisfied, my dear Lsetitia. She is as free as I am.
I can do no more than a man of honour should do. She
releases me. To-morrow 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 %ht, look in the glass.'

'I may redden,' said Lsetitia. '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 Wil-
loughby, 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 . . .'

MIDNIGHT 193

' You are mistaken.'

'I will cure you, my Lsetitia. 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 prefix, I beg. You place your
hand in mine, relying on me. I am pledged for the re-
mainder. 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, Lsetitia? I propose in the
plainest terms I can employ, to make you Lady
Patteme — mine.'

' I am compelled to refuse.'

'Why? Refuse? Your reason!'

'The reason has been named.'

He took a stride to inspirit 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. Oh!' he
walked away from her, booming a sound of utter repudia-
tion of her present imbecility, and hurrying to her side,
said : ' But it was manifest to the whole world ! It was a
legend. To love like Lsetitia 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 posses-
sion, my jewel; I was prouder of your constancy than of
anything else that I had on earth. It was a part of the

194 THE EGOIST

order of the universe to me. A doubt of it would have
disturbed my creed. Why, good heaven ! where are we ?
Is nothuig 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 devotedly, 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 prize 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 has 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 ! Lsetitia!'

'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.

MIDNIGHT 195

I have a right to know who robs me — ^We may try as we
Hke 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 dis-
credit? You loved me, you have ceased to love me. In
other words, you charge me with incapacity to sustain a
woman's love. You accuse me of inspiring a miserable
passion that cannot last a life-time ! You let the world
see that I am a man to be aimed at for a temporary mark !
And simply because I happen to be la your neighbourhood
at an age when a young woman is impressionable ! You
make a public example of me as a man for whom women
may have a caprice, but that is all; he caimot enchain
them; he fasciaates passingly; they faU 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 — spaying 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 dis-
honourable, it would be quite another matter! Then they
... I could recount ... I disdain to chronicle such
victories. Quite another matter ! But they are flies.

196 THE EGOIST

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 bom 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 sue 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 mortal 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. Sir WUloughby.'

'Have you any possible suspicion that I am still en-
tangled, not, as I assure 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?'

' Oh ! no ; 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, Lsetitia Dale.'

'Poetesses rarely are: if I am one, which I little

MIDNIGHT 197

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, Lsetitia. 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 ? Some day 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 Lsetitia meeting
me, stedfast 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 two? I fancy I heard of one. There was one.'
' He was an invalid. Elderly people nurse illusions.'
'Ask yourself, Lsetitia, who is the obstacle to the
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
to-morrow morning with the first light.'
'You will compel me to follow, and undeceive 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 a baseness.'
'Sir Willoughby, 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 a wife at any
cost.'

198 THE EGOIST

'You, LsBtitia, 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 sup-
pose you to 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 realize 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, Sir Willoughby. Good night.'

'One final word. Weigh it. Express no conventional
regrets. Resolutely you refuse?'

'Resolutely I do.'

'You refuse?'

'Yes.'

'I have sacrificed my pride for nothing ! You refuse?'

'Yes.'

'Humbled myself! And this is the answer! You do
refuse?'

'I do.'

'Good night, Lsetitia Dale.'

He gave her passage.

"Good night, Sir Willoughby.'

'I am in your power,' he said in a voice between sup-
plication 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 to-morrow before breakfast.'

'Permit me to escort you upstairs.'

'If you please : but I see no one here either to-night or
to-morrow.'

MIDNIGHT 199

'It is for the privilege of seeing the last of you.'

They withdrew.

Young Crossjay listened to the drumming of his head.
Somewhere in or over the cavity a drummer rattled
tremendously.

Sir Willoughby's laboratory-door shut with a slam.

Crossjay tumbled himself off the ottoman. He stole up
to the unclosed drawing-room door, and peeped. Never
was a 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 De
Craye.

'So there you are,' said the colonel, 'I 've been hunting
you.'

Crossjay related that his bed-room door was locked and
the key gone, and Sir Willoughby sitting up in the
laboratory.

Colonel De Craye took the boy to his own room, where
Crossjay lay on a 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 Crossjay 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 De Craye,
restrained him from defending himself ; and so he heaved
and tossed about till daybreak. At an early hour, while

200 THE EGOIST

his hospitable friend, who looked very handsome in profile
half breast and head above the sheets, continued to
slumber, Crossjay 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 at Patterne Hall dismayed him, for he knew
not how to act, and he was immoderately combustible,
too full of knowledge for self-containment; much too
zealously-excited on behalf of his dear Miss Middleton
to keep silent for many hours of the day.

CHAPTER XLI

THE REV. DE. MIDDLETON, CLARA, AND SIR WILLOUGHBY

When Master Crossjay tumbled down the stairs, Laetitia
was in Clara's room, speculating on the various mishaps
which might have befallen that battered youngster ; and
Clara listened anxiously after Laetitia 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 un-
dressed, went to bed, tried to sleep. She was tired of
strife. Strange thoughts for a young head shot through
her : as, that it is possible for the sense of duty to coun-
teract distaste ; and that one may live a life apart from
one's admirations and dislikes: she owned the singular
strength of Sir WUloughby in outwearying: 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

DR. MIDDLETON : CLARA : WILLOUGHBY 201

intention to make each further step confirm her liberty.
Looking back, she marvelled 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 vmhappiness
lay in her knowledge that they were alienated and stood
opposed, owing to one among the more perplexing mascu-
Hne weaknesses, which she could not hint at, dared barely
think of, and would not name in her meditations. Divert-
ing to other subjects, she allowed herself to exclaim :
'Wine! wine!' in renewed wonder of what there could
be in wine to entrap venerable men and obscure their
judgements. She was too young to consider that her
being very much iu the wrong gave all the importance to
the cordial glass ia 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 coloured it to
him, as a drop or two will do in any cup : 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 WUloughby 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

202 THE EGOIST

regret it and do penance for it by-and-by : — ^by renouncing
marriage altogether ? How light a penance !

In the morning, she went to Lsetitia'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 De Craye to walk
over to the cottage for news of Crossjay. He accepted
the commission, simply to obey and be in her service :
assuring her, however, that there was no need to be dis-
turbed about the boy. He would have told her more,
had not Dr. Middleton led 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 discomfiture. He
regarded his conduct as an act of madness, and Lsetitia's
as no less that of a madwoman — ^happily mad! Very
happily mad indeed! Her rejection of his ridiculously
generous proposal seemed to show an intervening hand in
his favour, 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
signal instance of the mediocrity of woman's love.

Time was flying. In a little while Mrs. Mountstuart
would arrive. He could not fence her without a design in
his head; he was destitute of an armoury if he had no
scheme : he racked the brain only to succeed in rousing
phantasmal vapours. Her infernal 'Twice'; would cease
now to apply to Lsetitia: it would be an echo of Lady
Busshe. 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

DR. MIDDLETON: CLARA: WILLOUGHBY 203

from being the most mischievous of his class with women !
Such is our reward for uprightness !

At the expiration of fifteen minutes by his watch, he
struck a knuckle on the library-door. Dr. Middleton
held it open to him.

'You are disengaged, sir?'

'The sermon is upon the paragraph which is toned to
awaken the clerk,' replied the Rev. Doctor.

Clara was weeping.

Sir Willoughby drew near her solicitously.

Dr. Middleton's mane of silvery hair was in a state
bearing witness to the vehemence of the sermon, and
WUloughby 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 !' WOloughby 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, aU the blame.
I implore you not to weep. Do me the favour to look at
me. I would not have had you subjected to any interro-
gation whatever.'

' You are not to blame,' Clara said on a sob.

' Undoubtedly Willoughby is not to blame. It was not
he who was bound on a runaway errand in flagrant breach
of duty and decorum, nor he who inflicted a catarrh 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 laboured for with so much sweat of his brow than the
parson, I can assure you,' Dr. Middleton mildly groaned.

204 THE EGOIST

'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 worse husband for it.
Nor do I rightly comprehend how a probably justly
exciteable temper can stand for a plea in Initigation of
an attempt at an outrageous breach of faith.'

'The sermon is over, sir.'

'Reverberations!' the Rev. Doctor waved his arm
placably. ' 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 in a lustrum, 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 the icicle of
a sudden thaw.

Willoughby squeezed it to his ribs.

DR. MIDDLETON: CLARA: WILLOUGHBY 205

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 Hiems has but to withdraw
for buds to burst. "Jam ver egelidos refert tepores."
The ffiquinoctial fury departs. I will leave you for a
term.'

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 repUed 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 frost-boimd.'

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 miautes, papa,' said Clara.

'Will she name the day?' came eagerly from Wil-
loughby.

'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 import-
ance at present. First prime your piece of artillery, my
friend.'

'The decision is taken, sir.'

206 THE EGOIST

'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, and
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.

'Hear us 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 imion, 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
caimot — I offended. One may be innocent and offend.
I have never pretended to impeccability, which is an ad-
mission that I may very naturally offend. My appeal
to her is for an explanation or for pardon. I obtain
neither. Had our positions been reversed. Oh! not for
any real offence — ^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

DR. MIDDLETON: CLARA: WILLOUGHBY 207

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 hurt 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 in 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 indoctrin-
ated with them : have I, then, in my ignorance offended
pastpenitence, 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 senti-
ment 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: pro-
ceed,' said Dr. Middleton, balked in his approving nods
at the right true things delivered.

'Judicially, I am bold to say, though it may appear a
presumption in one 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, 'person-
ally, and presently, abhor a breach of faith. Judicially?
Judicially to examine, judicially to condeirm: 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"

208 THE EGOIST

certain. You would signify, impersonally : which suflfices
for this exposition of your feelings.'

He peered at the gentleman under his brows, and re-
sumed: 'She has had it, Willoughby; she has had it
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 tiu-key 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 your hand, my girl ; forthright,
from the shoulder, like a brave boxer. Humour a lover.
He asks for his own.'

' It is more than I can do, father.'

'How, it is more than you can 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 offence, Clara, my offence! What is it? Will
you only name it?'

'Father, will you leave us? We can better speak to-
gether . . .'

'We have spoken, Clara, how often!' Willoughby
resumed, 'with what result? — ^that you loved me, that
you have ceased to love me : that your heart was mine,
that you have withdrawn it, plucked it from me: that
you request me to consent to a sacrifice involving my

DR. MIDDLETON: CLARA: WILLOUGHBY 209

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 for ever. 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 verily believe we are directing the girl to dissect a
caprice. 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 practised. 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 of hysterics ;
and are indubitably preferable, so long as they are not
pushed too far. Examples are not wanting to prove
that a ffighty initiative on the part of the male is a hand-
some 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 pimished 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 . . .'

'By the most merciful! what? what? the name for
it! words for it!'

210 THE EGOIST

'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 aforetime
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, Clara
Middleton.'

She caught her clasped hands up to her throat.
'Wretched, wretched, both!'

'And you have not a word against him, miserable
girl!'

'Miserable! lam.'

'It is the cry of an animal !'

'Yes, father.'

'You feel Uke one? Your behaviour is 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 Clara, 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 caimot 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 incom-
parable charms of loveliness of mind and person in

DR. MIDDLETON: CLARA: WILLOUGHBY 211

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 sank his voice.

'If it should turn to hate !' she murmured.

'Hatred of your husband?'

'I could not promise,' she murmured more softly in
her wilyness.

'Hatred?' he cried aloud, and Dr. Middleton stopped
in his walk and flimg up his head ; ' Hatred of your hus-
band? of the man you have vowed to love and honour?
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 stni together. Any alliance,
any, in preference to separation!'

Clara listened with a 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 situa-
tion to settle it from that little speech, 'he talks to you
jn this way now; and you are under my injunction to

212 THE EGOIST

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 weakened previous to Wiiloughby's entrance. Lan-
guage 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 Wil-
loughby, she could have invented some equivalent, to do
her heart justice for the injury it sustained in her being
unable to name the true and immense objection : but the
pair in presence paralyzed her. She dramatized them
each springing forward by turns, with crushing rejoinders.
The activity of her mind revelled in giving them a tongue,
but would not do it for herself. Then ensued the in-
evitable 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 clamouring, she
answered it with all that she imagined for those two men
to say. And she dropped poison on it to still its re-
proaches: bidding herself remember her fatal post-
ponements in order to preserve the seeming of consist-
ency before her father; calling it hypocrite; asking
herself, what was she ! who loved her ! And thus beat-
ing down her heart, she completed the mischief with a

DR. MIDDLETON: CLARA: WILLOUGHBY 213

piercing view of the foundation of her father's advocacy
of WDloughby, 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 re-
spect 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 any one 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
principal aim 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 was it to resign herself to him)
that it would not have been so difficult with an ill-
favoured man. With one horribly ugly, it 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

214 THE EGOIST

over: chiefly owing, as he supposed, to his physical
perfections.

Frequently indeed, in the contest between gentlemen
and ladies, have the maxims of the Book stimulated the
assailant to victory. They are rosy with blood of victims.
To hear 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 Vauban, who may bestir her wits to gather
maxims for the inspiriting of the Defence, the circum-
stance of a failure has to be recorded.

WUloughby 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.

Whence might we draw a note upon yonder maxim, in
words akin to these : Make certain ere a breath come
from thee that thou be not a frost.

'Mine! She is mine!' he cried: 'mine once more!
mine utterly ! mine eternally !' and he followed up his
devouring exclamations in person as she, less 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 Dian, all arrows : her maidenliness in
surrendering pleased him. Grasping one fair hand, he
just allowed her to edge away from 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
dUigently, to be guided by you, my darling. If I offend
again, my wife wUl 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 is past, we

DR. MIDDLETON: CLARA: WILLOUGHBY 215

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 is an error, an error. You must not
leave me. Do not think me utterly, eternally, belonging
to any one but you. No one shall say I am his but you.'

'Are you quicksands, Clara Middleton, that nothing
can be built on you? Whither is a flighty head and a
shifty wiU carrjdng the girl?'

'Clara and I, sir,' said WUloughby.

'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 roimded to our starting-point, with the solitary
difference that now you do not want to be alone with
Willoughby. First I am bidden go; next I am pulled
back ; and judging by collar and coat-tail, I suspect you
to be a young woman to wear an angel's temper thread-
bare 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, WU-
loughby; — as girls go !'

' Let me, sir, simply entreat to have her hand in mine
before you.'

'Why not, Clara?'

'Why an empty ceremony, papa?'

216 THE EGOIST

'The implication is, that she is prepared for the im-
portant one, friend Willoughby.'

'Her hand, 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 her shrinking elbows, darted a look of
repulsion at her pursuer, and ran to her father, crying :
'Call it my mood! I am 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 it an empty
ceremony, if it is before you. Yes, only be a little con-
siderate 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 dread, sir, of that one which leads to the rail-
way-station.'

'With some justice!' Dr. Middleton sighed over his
daughter.

Clara coloured to deep crimson: but she was beyond
anger, and was rather gratified by an offence coming from
Willoughby.

DR. MIDDLETON: CLARA: WILLOUGHBY 217

'I will promise not to leave his grounds, papa/

'My cMd, you have threatened to be a breaker of
promises.'

'Oh!' she wailed. 'But I will make it a vow to you.'

'Why not make it a vow to me this moment, for this
gentleman's contentment, that he shall be your husband
within a given period !'

' 1 will come to you voluntarily. I bum to be alone.'

'I shall lose her!' exclaimed Willoughby in heartfelt
earnest.

'How so?' said Dr. Middleton. 'I have her, sir, if
you wiU favour me by continuing ia abeyance. — You wUl
come within an hour voluntarily, Clara: 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 wiU?'

'I will.'

'Mind, I say reasons'

'Reasons, papa. If I have none . . .'

'If you have none that are to my satisfaction, you im-
plicitly, and instantly, and cordially obey my command.'

'I will obey.'

'What more would you require?' Dr. Middleton
bowed to Sir Willoughby in triumph.

'WiU she . . .'

'Sir! Sir!'

'She is your daughter, sir. I am 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 im-
posed on them by our considerate civilization; — ulti-
mately to rejoice with excessive dignity in the wearing of
a battered cocked-hat and trowsers not extending to the
^shanks : but she did not break her engagement, sir ; and

218 THE EGOIST

we will anticipate, that moderating a young woman's
native wildness, she may, after the manner of my com-
parison, take a similar pride in her fortmie in good season.'

Willoughby had not leisure to sound the depth of Dr,
Middleton's compliment. He had seen Clara gliding
out of the room during the delivery ; and his fear returned
on him that, not being won, she was lost.

' She has gone' ; her father noticed her absence. 'She
does not waste time in the mission to procure that as-
tonishing 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 composure — nothing more.
No one likes to be turned about ; we like to turn our-
selves about : and in the question of an act to be com-
mitted, 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 Patterne to-night.'

'No, sir.'

'It may be attributable to a sense of deserving, but I
could plead guilty to a weakness for old Port to-day.'

'There shall be an extra-bottle, sir.'

'AH going favourably with you, as I have no cause to
doubt,' said Dr. Middleton, with the motion of wafting
his host out of the library.

CHAPTER XLII

SHOWS THE DIVINING ABTS OF A PEBCEPTIVB MIND

Starting from the Hall, a few minutfes before Dr. Middle-
ton and Sir Willoughby had entered the drawing-room
overnight, Vernon parted company with Colonel De
Craye at the park-gates, and betook himself to the cottage

A PERCEPTIVE MIND 219

of the Dales, where nothing had been heard of his wan-
derer ; and he received the same disappointing reply from
Dr. Corney, out of the bed-room window of the genial
physician, whose astonishment at his covering so long a
stretch of road at night for news of a boy like Crossjay
— gifted with the lives of a cat — became violent and
rapped 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. Corney
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 Miss Middleton's
knight, and he felt a strong compassion for his poor friend.
'Though,' thought 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 shufiles along as pleasantly
as the fortune-favoured, when they come to compute !'

Sir Willoughby was the fortune-favoured 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 favour 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 dew and
roots ; and the happy effect for Vernon lay in a distant
future, on the borders of old age, where he was to be
blest 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

220 THE EGOIST

profoundly opposed to Dr. Comey'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 Comey loved him : the type of person was the annoy-
ance. And the circumstance of its prevailing success-
fulness in the country where he was placed, while it held
him silent as if imder a law, heaped stores of iusurgency
iu the Celtic bosom. Comey contemplating Sir Wil-
loughby, and a trotting kern governed by Strongbow,
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 Englishwomen but 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 carolled 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 highroad up a green lane, an hour later, he beheld a
youngster pr5Tng into a hedge head and arms, by the
peculiar strenuous twist of whose hinder parts, indicative
of a frame plunged on the pursuit in hand, he clearly
distinguished young Crossjay. Out came eggs. The
doctor pulled up.

'What bird?' he bellowed.

' Yellowhammer,' Crossjay yelled back.

'Now, sir, you'll drop a couple of those eggs in the
nest.'

'Don't order me,' Crossjay was retorting: 'Oh! it's
you, Dr. Corney. Good morning. I said that, because
I always do drop a couple back. I promised Mr. Whit-
ford I would, and Miss Middleton too.'

A PERCEPTIVE MIND 221

'Had breakfast?'

'Not yet.'

'Not hungry?'

'I should be if I thought about it.'

'Jump up.'

'I think I 'd rather not, Dr. Comey.'

'And you '11 Just do what Dr. Comey tells you; and
set your mind on rashers 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.'

Crossjay jumped up beside the doctor, who remarked,
as he touched his horse : ' I don't want a man this morn-
ing, though I '11 enlist you in my service if I do. You 're
fond of Miss Middleton?'

Instead of answering, Crossjay heaved the sigh of love
that bears a burden.

'And so am I,' pursued the doctor: 'You '11 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 Crossjay.

' You 're worthy of a gratuitous breakfast in the front
parlour of the best hotel of the place they call Arcadia.
And how about your bed last night?'

'Pretty middling.'

' Hard, was it, where the bones haven't cushion?'

'I don't care for bed. A couple of hours, and that's
enough for me.'

' But you 're fond of Miss Middleton anyhow, and
that 's a virtue.'

To his great surprise, Dr. Comey beheld two big round
tears force their way out of this tough youngster's eyes,
and all the while the boy's face was proud.

Crossjay said, when he could trust himself to disjoin
.his lips : 'I want to see Mr. Whitford.'

222 THE EGOIST

'Have you got news for him?'

' I 've 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, himting you all the unholy night you 've made it for
him. That 's melancholy. What do you say to asking
my advice?'

Crossjay 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. Crossjay Patterne.'

'Ah! so 'd anybody be who knew as much as I do,'
said Crossjay, 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,' Crossjay spoke re-
solutely.

'You won't see Miss Middleton anywhere but at the
Hall.'

' I don't want to see Miss Middleton, if I can't be a bit
of use to her.'

' No danger threatening the lady, is there ? '

Crossjay treated the question as if it had not been put.

'Now, tell me,' said Dr. Corney, 'would there be a
chance for me, supposing Miss Middleton were dis-
engaged?'

The answer was easy. ' I 'm sure she wouldn't.'

'And why, sir, are you so cock sure?'

There was no saying; but the doctor pressed for it.

A PERCEPTIVE MIND 223

and at last Cross jay gave his opinion that she would take
Mr. Whitford.

The doctor asked why; and Crossjay said it was
because Mr. Whitford was the best man in the world.
To which, with a lusty 'Amen to that,' Dr. Corney
remarked: 'I should have fancied Colonel De Craye
would have had the first chance : he 's more of a lady's
man.'

Crossjay surprised him again by petulantly saying:
'Don't.'

The boy added: 'I don't want to talk, except about
birds and things. What a joUy morning it is ! I saw
the sun rise. No rain to-day. You 're right about
hungry. Dr. Corney!'

The kindly little man swung his whip. Crossjay in-
formed him of his disgrace at the Hall, and of every
incident connected with it, from the tramp to the baronet,
save Miss Middleton's adventure, and the night-scene in
the drawing-room. A strong smeU of something left out
struck Dr. Corney, and he said: 'You'll not let Miss
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.'

Crossjay scorned to talk of loving, he declared. 'I
never tell Miss Middleton what I feel. Why, there 's
Miss Dale's cottage !'

'It 's nearer to your empty inside than my mansion,'
said the doctor, 'and we '11 stop just to inquire whether a
bed 's to be had for you there to-night, and if not, I '11
have you with me, and bottle you and exhibit you, for
you 're a rare specimen. Breakfast, you may count on,
from Mr. Dale. I spy a gentleman.'
. 'It 's Colonel De Craye.'

224 THE EGOIST

'Come after news of you.'

'I wonder!'

'Miss Middleton sends him; of course she does.'

Crossjay turned his full face to the doctor. 'I haven't
seen her for such a long time I 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 Bligh.'

He jumped down.

The colonel and the doctor saluted smiling.

'I 've rung the bell,' said De Craye.

A maid came to the gate, and upon her steps appeared
Miss Dale, who flung herself at Crossjay, mingling kisses
and reproaches. She scarcely raised her face to the
colonel more than to reply to his greeting, and excuse the
hungry boy for hurrying indoors to breakfast.

'I 'U wait,' said De Craye. He had seen that she was
paler than usual. So had Dr. Comey; and the doctor
called to her concerning her father's health. She re-
ported that he had not y6t risen, and took Crossjay 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 next day streaming. Men are ships'
figure-heads, 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 'U please to notify that Comey 's no quack
at sea, by favour of the monks of the Chartreuse, whose

A PERCEPTIVE MIND 225

elixir has power to still the waves. And we hear that
miracles are done with !'

'Roll a physician and a monk together, doctor !'

' True : it '11 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 game-
keeper.'

' Try him. You '11 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 '11 see,' said the colonel.

Dr. Corney nodded. 'I have to visit my patient here
presently. I 'm too early for him : so I 'U make a call or
two on the lame birds that are up,' he remarked, and drove
away.

De Craye strolled through the garden. He was a
gentleman of those actively perceptive wits which, if
ever they reflect, do so by hops and jxmips : 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 percep-
tives. The fact that Cross] ay was considered to have
Miss Middleton on the brain, threw a series of images of
everything relating to Crossjay for the last forty hours into
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

226 THE EGOIST

with the methods and in the tracks to which it is ac-
customed: and to conjecture rashly is to play into the
puzzles of the maze. He who can watch circling above it
awhile, 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 en-
tanglement 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.

De Craye 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 eye-
lids when he passed her on the corridor one night. She
sent Crossjay out to him as soon as the boy was well filled.
He sent Crossjay back with a request. She did not yield
to it immediately. She stepped to the front door re-
luctantly, and seemed disconcerted. De Craye 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 despatch
a word. She could not ; she had no heart for messages.

'I shall see her in a day or two, Colonel De Craye.'

'She will miss you severely.'

'We shall soon meet.'

'And poor Willoughby !'

Laetitia coloured and stood silent.

A butterfly of some rarity allured Crossjay.

'I fear he has been doing mischief,' she said. 'I
cannot get him to look at me.'

A PERCEPTIVE MIND 227

'His appetite is good?'

'Very good indeed.'

De Craye nodded. A boy with a noble appetite is never
a hopeless lock.

The colonel and Crossjay lounged over the garden.

' And now,' said the colonel, ' we '11 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 Crossjay.

'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 '11 be at the Hall.'

There was no reply : Crossjay'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, Crossjay. I flatter myself I 'm
a Toledo when I 'm wanted. How long had 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, Crossjay, you 're not a fellow to be scared by
ghosts? You looked it when you made a dash at my
midriff.'

'I don't believe there are such things. Do you,
eolonel? You can't!'

228 THE EGOIST

'There 's no saying. We '11 hope not; for it wouldn't
be fair fighting. A man with a ghost to back him 'd
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!' Crossjay 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 'ddo . . . I 'dgo . . . 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 any scrape yesterday.'

'So you made yourself up a comfortable bed in the
drawing-room ? Lucky Sir WUloughby didn't see you.'

'He didn't, though!'

'A close shave, was it?'

' I was under a cover of something silk.'

'He woke you?'

'I suppose he did. I heard him.'

'Talking?'

'He was talking.'

'What ! talking to himself?'

'No.'

The secret threatened Crossjay to be out or suffocate
him.

De Craye gave him a respite.

'You Uke Sir Willoughby, don't you?'

Crossjay produced a still-bom affirmative.

' He 's kind to you,*" said the colonel ; ' he '11 set you up
and look after your interests.'

'Yes, I like him,' said Crossjay, with his customary

A PERCEPTIVE MIND 229

rapidity in touching the subject; 'I like him; he's
kind, and all that, and tips and plays with you, and 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
WUloughby 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 Patterne is as brave a man as ever lived,' said
De Craye.

' 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 WUloughby 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 De Craye.

'He came home, very tired with a cold, and had a
doctor. But Sir WUloughby did send him money, and
mother wished to send it back, and my father said she
was not like a woman — with our big famUy. He said he
thought Sir WiUoughby an extraordinary man.'

'Not at all ; very common ; indigenous,' said De Craye.
'The art of cutting, is one of the branches of a polite
education in this country, and you '11 have to learn it, if

230 THE EGOIST

you expect to be looked on as a gentleman and a Patteme,
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 De Craye, how could I help myself ? I heard
a lot before I knew what it was. There was poetry !'

' Still, Crossjay, if it was important ! — was it ? '

The boy swelled again, and the colonel asked him:
'Does Miss Dale know of your having played listener?'

'She!' said Crossjay. 'Oh! I couldn't telUer.'

He breathed thick: then came a threat 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.
Whitford!' Crossjay 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 Crossjay 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 De Craye, who see nothing, feel nothing.

He crossed a stile into the wood above the lake, where,
as he was in the humour to think himself signally lucky,
espying 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 wondered little at her power, for rarely
had the world seen such union of princess and sylph as in
that lady's figure. She stood holding by a beech-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 colour overflowed a grave face.

'And 'tis not quite the first time that Willoughby has

A PERCEPTIVE MIND 231

played this trick!' De Craye said to her, keenly smiling
with a parted mouth.

Clara 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 Clara, 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.

Another instinct at work (they spring up in twenties
oftener than in twos when the heart is 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 : WiUoughby sets you free.'

'You have come from him?' she could imagine nothing
else, and she was imable to preserve a disguise; she
trembled.

'From Miss Dale.'

'Ah!' Clara drooped : 'she told me that once.'

' "lis the fact that tells it now.'

'You have not seen him since you left the house?'

' Darkly : clear enough : not imlike the hand of destiny
— ^through a veil. He offered himself to Miss Dale last
night, about between the witching hours of twelve and

282 THE EGOIST

'Miss Dale . . .?'

'Would she other? Could she? The poor lady has
languished beyond a decade. She 's love in the feminine
person.'

'Are you speaking seriously, Colonel De Craye?'

'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 Crossjay. — 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? — Everjrthing is possible of him:
they were together, I know. Colonel De Craye, 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 honour 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 on earth. And
next I was led to the conclusion that he had won it 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.

A PERCEPTIVE MIND 2§3

'He uncovered it,' said De Craye. 'The miracle was,
that the world wouldn't see. But the world is a piggy-
wiggy 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 they 're a pair as happy
as blackbirds in a cherry-tree, in a summer sunrise, with
the owner of the garden asleep. Because of that appre-
hension 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 aU 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 colonel was using his eyes with an increasing
suavity that threatened more than sweetness.

'I believe you have been siacerely 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 per-
forming the admirable 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 resistible impulse,
coming of his emotions and approved by his maxims.
He looked at the hand, now a free lady's hand. WU-
loughby settled, his chance was great. Who else was in
the way? No one. He counselled himself to wait for

234 THE EGOIST

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 imwilling 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 mention. Have you not been hasty, Colonel De
Craye?'

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?'

'Crossjay was under that pretty silk coverlet worked by
the Miss Pattemes. 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 Ijdng
quiet. He was restless as a fish on a bank. When I
woke in the morning he was off. Dr. Comey came across
him somewhere on the road and drove him to the
cottage. I was ringing the bell. Comey told me the
boy had you on his brain, and was miserable, so Crossjay
and I had a talk.'

' Crossjay did not repeat to you the conversation he had
heard?' said Clara.

'No.'

A PERCEPTIVE MIND 235

She smiled rejoicingly, proud of the boy, as she walked
on.

'But you '11 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 con-
fessor.'

'Crossjay !' 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 Crossjay 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 in thought to Wil-
loughby, 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, save by the key that she
could supply. She determined to put faith in Colonel De
Craye's marvellous divination of circumstances in the
dark. Marvels are solid weapons when we are attacked
by real prodigies of nature. Her coimtenance cleared.
She conversed with De Craye of the polite and the
political world, throwing off her personal burden com-
pletely, and charming him.

At the edge of the garden, on the bridge that crossed the

236 THE EGOIST

haha 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 forgives me!' was in Clara's
mind, though she would have declared herself ianocent
before the scrutator.

CHAPTER XLIII

IN "WHICH SIR WILLOUGHBT IS LED TO THINK THAT THE
ELEMENTS HAVE CONSPIBED AGAINST HIM

Clara had not taken many steps in the garden before she
learnt how great was her debt of gratitude to Colonel De
Craye. WUloughby and her father were awaiting her.
De Craye, with his ready comprehension of circumstances,
turned aside unseen among the shrubs. She advanced
slowly.

'The vapours, we may trust, have dispersed?' her
father hailed her.

'One word, and these discussions are over, we dislike
them equally,' said Willoughby.

'No scenes,' Dr. Middleton added. 'Speak your
decision, my girl, pro formd, seeing that he who has the
right demands it, and pray release me.'

Clara looked at Willoughby.

'I have decided to go to Miss Dale for her advice.'

There was no appearance in him of a man that has been
shot.

'To Miss Dale?— for advice?'

Dr. Middleton invoked the Furies. 'What is the
signification of this new freak?'

'Miss Dale must be consulted, papa.'

A CONSPIRACY OF THE ELEMENTS 237

'Consulted with reference to the disposal of your hand
in marriage?'

'She must be.'

'Miss Dale, do you say?'

'I do, papa.'

Dr. Middleton regained his natural elevation from the
bend of body habitual with men of an established sanity,
psedagogues and others, who are called on at odd intervals
to inspect the magnitude of the infinitesimally absurd in
human nature : small, that is, under the light of reason,
immense in the realms of madness.

His daughter profoundly confused him. He swelled
out his chest, remarking to Wnioughby: 'I do not
wonder at your scared expression of countenance, my
friend. To discover yourself engaged to a girl as mad as
Cassandra, without a boast of the distinction of her being
sun-struck, can be no specially comfortable enlightenment.
I am opposed to delays, and I will not have a breach of
faith committed by daughter of mine.'

'Do not repeat those words,' Clara said to WiUoughby.

He started. She had evidently come armed. But
how, within so short a space? What could have in-
structed her? And in his bewilderment he gazed
hurriedly above, gulped air, and cried: 'Scared, sir?
I am not aware that my countenance can show a scare.
I am not accustomed to sue for long: I am unable to
sustain the part of humble supplicant. She puts me out
of harmony with creation — ^We are plighted, Clara. It is
pure waste of time to speak of soliciting advice on the
subject.'

'Would it be a breach of faith for me to break my
engagement?' she said.

'You ask?'

'It is a breach of sanity to propound the interrogation,'
said her father.

238 THE EGOIST

She looked at WUloughby ! ' Now ? '

He shrugged haughtily.

'Since last night?' said she.

'Last night?'

'Am I not released?'

'Not by me.'

'By your act.'

'My dear Clara!'

'Have you not virtually disengaged me?'

'I who claim you as mine?'

'Can you?'

'I do and must.'

'After last night?'

' Tricks ! shufflings ! Jabber of a barbarian woman
upon the evolutions of a serpent !' exclaimed Dr. Middle-
ton. 'You were to capitulate, or to furnish reasons for
your refusal. You have none. Give him your hand, girl,
according to the compact. I praised you to him for
returning within the allotted term, and now forbear to
disgrace yourself and me.'

'Is he perfectly free to offer his? Ask him, papa.'

'Perform your duty. Do let us have peace !'

'Perfectly free! as on the day when I offered it first,*
Willoughby frankly waved his honourable hand.

His face was blanched : enemies in the air seemed to
have whispered things to her : he doubted the fidelity of
the Powers above.

'Since last night?' said she.

'Oh ! if you insist, I reply, since last night.'

'You know wh'at I mean, Sir Willoughby.'

'Oh! certainly.'

'You speak the truth?'

'"Sir Willoughby"!' her father ejaculated in wrath.
'But will you explain what you mean, epitome that you
are of all the contradictions and mutabilities ascribed to

A CONSPIRACY OF THE ELEMENTS 239

women from the beginning! "Certainly," he says, and
knows no more than I. She begs grace for an hour, and
returns with a fresh store of evasions, to insult the man
she has injured. It is my humiliation to confess that our
share in this contract is rescued from public ignominy by
his generosity. Nor can I congratulate him on his fortune,
should he condescend to bear with you to the utmost ; for
instead of the yoimg woman I supposed myself to be
bestowing on him, I see a fantastical planguncula en-
livened by the wanton tempers of a nursery chit. If one
may conceive a meaning in her, in miserable apology for
such behaviour, some spirit of jealousy informs the girl.'

'I can only remark, that there is no foundation for it,'
said Willoughby. 'I am willing to satisfy you, Clara.
Name the person who discomposes you. I can scarcely
imagine one to exist : but who can tell?'

She could name no person. The detestable imputation
of jealousy would be confirmed if she mentioned a name :
and indeed Laetitia was not to be named.

He pursued his advantage : 'Jealousy is one of the fits
I am a stranger to, — I fancy, sir, that gentlemen have dis-
missed it. I speak for myself. — ^But I can make allow-
ances. In some cases, it is considered a compliment ; and
often a word will soothe it. The whole affair is so sense-
less ! However, I wiU enter the witness-box, or stand at
the prisoner's bar! Anything to quiet a distempered
mind.'

'Of you, sir,' said Dr. Middleton, 'might a parent be
justly proud.'

'It is not jealousy; I could not be jealous!' Clara
cried, stung by the very passion ; and she ran through her
brain for a suggestion to win a sign of meltingness if not
esteem from her father. She was not an iron maiden,
but one among the nervous natures which live largely in
the moment, though she was then sacrificing it to her

240 THE EGOIST

nature's deep dislike. 'You may be proud of me again,
papa.'

She could hardly have uttered anything more impolitic.

'Optume: but deliver yourself ad rem,' he rejoined,
alarmingly pacified. ' Firmavit fidem. Do you likewise,
and double on us no more like puss in the field.'

'I wish to see Miss Dale,' she said.

Up flew the Rev. Doctor's arms in wrathful despair
resembling an imprecation.

'She is at the cottage. You could have seen her,' said
Willoughby.

Evidently she had not.

'Is it untrue, that last night, between twelve o'clock
and one, in the drawing-room, you proposed marriage to
Miss Dale?'

He became convinced that she must have stolen down-
stairs during his colloquy with Lsetitia, and listened at the
door.

'On behalf of old Vernon?' he said, lightly laughing.
'The idea is not novel, as you know. They are suited, if
they could see it. — Lsetitia Dale and my cousin Vernon
Whitford, sir.'

' Fairly schemed, my friend, and I will say for you, you
have the patience, Willoughby — of a husband !'

Willoughby bowed to the encomium, and allowed some
fatigue to be visible. He half yawned : 'I claim no
happier title, sir,' and made light of the weariful discus-
sion.

Clara was shaken : she feared that Crossjay had heard
incorrectly, or that Colonel De Craye had guessed erro-
neously. It was too likely that Willoughby should have
proposed Vernon to Lsetitia.

There was nothing to reassure her save the vision of the
panic amazement of his face at her persistency in speaking
of Miss Dale. She could have declared on oath that she

A CONSPIRA.CY OF THE ELEMENTS 241

was right, while admitting all the suppositions to be
against her. And unhappily all the Delicacies (a doughty
battalion for the defence of ladies until they enter into
difficulties and are shorn of them at a blow, bare as dairy-
maids), all the body-guard of a young gentlewoman, the
drawing-room sylphides, which bear her train, which
wreathe her hair, which modulate her voice and tone her
complexion, which are arrows and shield to awe the
creature man, forbade her utterance of what she felt, on
pain of instant fulfilment of their oft-repeated threat of
late to leave her to the last remnant of a protecting sprite.
She could not, as ia a dear melodrama, from the aim of
a pointed finger denounce him, on the testimony of her
instincts, false of speech, false in deed. She could not
even declare that she doubted his truthfulness. The
refuge of a sullen fit, the refuge of tears, the pretext of a
mood, were denied her now by the rigour of those laws
of decency which are a garment to ladies of pure breeding.

'One more respite, papa,' she implored him, bitterly
conscious of the closer tangle her petition involved, and,
if it must be betrayed of her, perceiving in an illumination
how the knot might become so woefully Gordian that haply
in a cloud of wild events the intervention of a gallant
gentleman out of heaven, albeit in the likeness of one of
earth, would have to cut it: her cry within, as she
succumbed to weakness, being fervider: 'Anything but
marry this one!' She was faint with strife and de-
jected, a condition in the young when their imaginative
energies hold revel uncontrolled and are projectively
desperate.

'No respite!' said WiUoughby genially.

'And I say, no respite!' observed her father. 'You
have assumed a position that has not been granted you,
Clara Middleton.'

'I cannot bear to offend you, father.'

242 THE EGOIST

'Him ! Your duty is not to offend him. Address your
excuses to him. I refuse to be dragged over the same
ground, to reiterate the same command perpetually.'

'If authority is deputed to me, I claim you,' said
Willoughby.

' You have not broken faith with me ? '

'Assuredly not, or would it be possible for me to press
my claim?'

'And join the right hand to the right,' said Dr. Middle-
ton: 'no, it would not be possible. What insane root
she has been nibbling, I know not, but she must consign
herself to the guidance of those whom the gods have not
abandoned, until her intellect is liberated. She was
once . . . there: I look not back: — ^if she it was, and
no simulacrum of a reasonable daughter. I welcome
the appearance of my friend Mr. Whitford. He is my sea-
bath and supper on the beach of Troy, after the day's
battle and dust.'

Vernon walked straight up to them : an act unusual with
him, for he was shy of committing an intrusion.

Clara guessed by that, and more by the dancing frown
of speculative humour he turned on Willoughby, that he
had come charged in support of her. His forehead was
curiously lively, as of one who has got a surprise well
under, to feed on its amusing contents.

'Have you seen Crossjay, Mr. Whitford?' she said.

'I 've pounced on Crossjay; his bones are sound.'

'Where did he sleep?'

'On a sofa, it seems.'

She smiled, with good hope — Vernon had the story.

Willoughby thought it just to himself that he should
defend his measure of severity.

'The boy lied ; he played a double game.'

'For which he should have been reasoned with at the
Grecian portico of a boy,' said the Rev. Doctor.

A CONSPIRACY OF THE ELEMENTS 243

'My system is different, sir. I could not inflict what
I would not endure myself.'

'So is Greek excluded from the later generations ; and
you leave a field, the most fertile in the moralities in
youth, unploughed and imsown. Ah ! well. This grow-
ing too fine is our way of relapsing upon barbarism.
Beware of over-sensitiveness, where nature has plainly
indicated her alternative gateway of knowledge. And
now, I presume, I am at liberty.'

'Vernon will excuse us for a minute or two.'

' I hold by Mr. Whitf ord now I have him.'

'I '11 join you in the laboratory, Vernon,' Willoughby
nodded bluntly.

'We will leave them, Mr. Whitf ord. They are at the
time-honoured dissension upon a particular day, that for
the sake of dignity, blushes to be named.'

'What day?' said Vernon, like a rustic.

' The day, these people call it.'

Vernon sent one of his vivid eyeshots from one to the
other. His eyes fixed on Willoughby's with a quivering
glow, beyond amazement, as if his humour stood at
furnace heat, and absorbed all that came.

Willoughby motioned to him to go.

'Have you seen Miss Dale, Mr. Whitf ord?' said Clara.

He answered: 'No. Something has shocked her.'

'Is it her feeling for Crossjay?'

'Ah,' Vernon said to Willoughby, 'your pocketing of
the key of Crossjay's bedroom door was a masterstroke!'

The celestial irony suffused her, and she bathed and
swam in it, on hearing its dupe reply: 'My methods of
discipline are short. I was not aware that she had been
to his door.'

'But I may hope that Miss Dale wUl see me,' said Clara.
'We are in sympathy about the boy.'

' Mr. Dale might be seen. He seems to be of a divided

244 THE EGOIST

mind with his daughter,' Vernon rejoined. 'She has
locked herself up in her room.'

'He is not the only father in that unwholesome pre-
dicament,' said Dr. Middleton.

' He talks of coming to you, Willoughby.'

'Why to me?' Willoughby chastened his irritation:
' He will be welcome, of course. It would be better that
the boy should come.'

' If there is a chance of your forgiving him,' said Clara.

' Let the Dales know I am prepared to listen to the boy,
Vernon. There can be no necessity for Mr. Dale to drag
himself here.'

' How are Mr. Dale and his daughter of a divided mind,
Mr. Whitford?' said Clara.

Vernon simulated an uneasiness. With a vacant gaze
that enlarged around Willoughby and was more dis-
comforting than intentness, he replied : ' Perhaps she is
unwilling to give him her entire confidence. Miss Mid-
dleton.'

'In which respect, then, our situations present their
solitary point of unlikeness in resemblance, for I have it
in excess,' observed Dr. Middleton.

Clara dropped her eyelids for the wave to pass over.
' It struck me that Miss Dale was a person of the extremest
candour.'

' Why should we be prying into the domestic affairs of
the Dales!' Willoughby interjected, and drew out his
watch, merely for a diversion ; he was on tiptoe to learn
whether Vernon was as well instructed as Clara, and hung
to the view that he could not be, while drenching in the
sensation that he was : — ^and if so, what were the Powers
above but a body of conspirators ? He paid Lsetitia that
compliment. He could not conceive the human betrayal
of the secret. Clara's discovery of it had set his common
sense adrift.

A CONSPIRACY OF THE ELEMENTS 245

'The domestic affairs of the Dales do not concern me,'
said Vernon.

'And yet, my friend,' Dr. Mddleton balanced himself,
and with an air of benevolent slyness, the import of which
did not awaken Willoughby until too late, remarked:
'They might concern you. I wUl even add, that there
is a probability of your being not less than the fount and
origin of this division of father and daughter, though
Willoughby ia the drawing-room last night stands accuse-
ably the agent.'

'Favour me, sir, with an explanation,' said Vernon,
seeking to gather it from Clara.

Dr. Middleton threw the explanation upon Willoughby.

Clara communicated as much as she was able in one
of those looks of still depth which say, Think ! and with-
out causing a thought to stir, take us into the pellucid
mind.

Vernon was enlightened before Willoughby had spoken.
His mouth shut rigidly, and there was a springing in-
crease of the luminous wavering of his eyes. Some star
that Clara had watched at night was like them in the
vivid wink and overflow of its light. Yet, as he was per-
fectly sedate, none could have suspected his blood to be
chasing wild with laughter, and his frame stnmg to the
utmost to keep it from volleying. So happy was she in
his aspect, that her chief anxiety was to recover the name
of the star whose shining beckons and speaks, and is in
the quick of spirit-fire. It is the sole star which on a
night of frost and strong moonlight preserves an in-
domitable fervency: that she remembered, and the pic-
ture of a hoar earth and a lean Orion in flooded heavens,
and the star beneath. Eastward of him : but the name !
the name! — She heard Willoughby indistinctly.

'Oh, the old story, another effort; you know my
wish; a failure, of course, and no thanks on either side.

246 THE EGOIST

I suppose I must ask your excuse. — ^They neither of them
see what 's good for them, sir.'

'Manifestly, however,' said Dr. Middleton, 'if one
may opine from the division we have heard of, the father
is disposed to back your nominee.'

' I can't say ; as far as I am concerned, I made a mess
of it.'

Vernon withstood the incitement to acquiesce, but he
sparkled with his recognition of the fact.

'You meant well, Willoughby.'

'I hope so, Vernon.'

'Only you have driven her away.'

'We must resign ourselves.'

' It won't affect me, for I 'm off to-morrow.'

' You see, sir, the thanks I get.'

'Mr. Whitford,' said Dr. Middleton, 'you have a tower
of strength in the lady's father.'

'Would you have me bring it to bear upon the lady,
sir?'

'Wherefore not?'

'To make her marriage a matter of obedience to her
father?'

' Ay, my friend, a lusty lover would have her gladly on
those terms, well knowing it to be for the lady's good.
What do you say, Willoughby?'

'Sir! Say? What can I say? Miss Dale has not
plighted her faith. Had she done so, she is a lady who
would never dishonour it.'

'She is an ideal of constancy, who would keep to it
though it had been broken on the other side,' said Vernon,
and Clara thrilled.

' I take that, sir, to be a statue of constancy, modelled
upon which, a lady of our flesh may be proclaimed as
graduating for the condition of idiocy,' said Dr. Middleton.

'But faith is faith, sir.'

A CONSPIRACY OF THE ELEMENTS 247

'But the broken is the broken, sir, whether in porce-
lain or in human engagements : and all that the one of
the two continuing faithful, I should rather say, regretful,
can do, is to devote the remainder of life to the picking
up of the fragments; an occupation properly to be pur-
sued, for the comfort of mankind, within the enclosure
of an appoiuted asylum.'

'You destroy the poetry of sentiment, Dr. Middleton.'

'To invigorate the poetry of nature, Mr. Whitford.'

'Then you maintain, sir, that when faith is broken by
one, the engagement ceases, and the other is absolutely
free?'

'I do; I am the champion of that platitude, and
sound that knell to the sentimental world; and since
you have chosen to defend it, I wUl appeal toWilloughby,
and ask him if he would not side with the world of good
sense in applauding the nuptials of man or maid married
within a month of a jilting ? '

Clara slipped her arm under her father's.

'Poetry, sir,' said Willoughby, 'I never have been
hypocrite enough to pretend to understand or care for.'

Dr. Middleton laughed. Vernon too seemed to admire
his cousin for a reply that rang in Clara's ears as the
dullest ever spoken. Her arm grew cold on her father's.
She began to fear Willoughby again.

He depended entirely on his agility to elude the thrusts
that assailed him. Had he been able to beUeve in the
treachery of the Powers above, he would at once have
seen design ia these deadly strokes, for his feelings had
rarely been more acute than at the present crisis; and
he would then have led away Clara, to wrangle it out
with her, relying on Vernon's friendliness not to betray
him to her father: but a wrangle with Clara promised
no immediate fruits, nothing agreeable ; and the lifelong
trust he had reposed in his protecting genii, obscured his

248 THE EGOIST

intelligence to evidence he would otherwise have accepted
on the spot, on the faith of his delicate susceptibility
to the mildest impressions which woimded him. Clara
might have stooped to listen at the door : she might
have heard sufficient to create a suspicion. But Vernon
was not in the house last night ; she could not have com-
municated it to him, and he had not seen Lsetitia, who
was besides trustworthy, an admirable if a foolish and
ill-fated woman.

Preferring to consider Vernon a pragmatical moralist
played upon by a sententious drone, he thought it politic
to detach them, and vanquish Clara while she was in
the beaten mood, as she had appeared before Vernon's
vexatious arrival.

' I 'm afraid, my dear fellow, you are rather too dainty
and fussy for a very successful wooer,' he said. 'It's
beautiful on paper, and absurd in life. We have a bit
of private business to discuss. We will go inside, sir,
I think. I will soon release you.'

Clara pressed her father's arm.

'More?' said he.

'Five minutes. There 's a slight delusion to clear, sir.
My dear Clara, you will see with different eyes.'

'Papa wishes to work with Mr. Whitford.'

Her heart sank to hear her father say: 'No, 'tis a lost
morning. I must consent to pay tax of it for giving
another young woman to the world. I have a daughter !
You will, I hope, compensate me, Mr. Whitford, in the
afternoon. Be not downcast. I have observed you
meditative of late. You will have no clear brain so long
as that stuff is on the mind. I could venture to propose
to do some pleading for you, should it be needed for the
prompter expedition of the affair.'

Vernon briefly thanked him, and said :

'Willoughby has exerted all his eloquence, and you see

A CONSPIRACY OF THE ELEMENTS 249

the result : you have lost Miss Dale and I have not won
her. He did everything that one man can do for another
in so delicate a case : even to the repeating of her famous
birthday verses to him, to flatter the poetess. His best
efforts were foiled by the lady's indisposition for me.'

'Behold,' said Dr. Middleton, as Willoughby, electrified
by the mention of the verses, took a sharp stride or two,
'you have in him an advocate who will not be rebuffed
by one refusal, and I can affirm that he is tenacious,
pertinacious as are few. Justly so. Not to believe in
a lady's No, is the approved method of carrying that
fortress buUt to yield. Although unquestionably to
have a young man pleading in our interests with a lady,
counts its objections. Yet Willoughby being notoriously
engaged, may be held to enjoy the privileges of his
elders.'

'As an engaged man, sir, he was on a level with his
elders in pleading on my behalf with Miss Dale,' said
Vernon.

Willoughby strode and muttered. Providence had
grown mythical in his thoughts, if not malicious : and
it is the peril of this worship, that the object will wear
such an alternative aspect when it appears no longer
subservient.

'Are we coming, sir?' he said, and was unheeded.
The Rev. Doctor would not be defrauded of rolling his.
billow.

'As an honourable gentleman faithful to his own
engagement and desirous of establishing his relatives, he
deserves, in my judgement, the lady's esteem as well as
your cordial thanks; nor should a temporary failure
dishearten either of you, notwithstanding the precipitate
retreat of the lady from Patteme, and her seclusion in
her sanctum on the occasion of your recent visit.'

'Supposing he had succeeded,' said Vernon, driving

250 THE EGOIST

Willoughby to frenzy, 'should I have been bound to
marry?'

Matter for cogitation was offered to Dr. Middleton.

'The proposal was without your sanction?'

'Entirely.'

'You admire the lady?'

'Respectfully.'

'You do not incline to the state?'

' An inch of an angle would exaggerate my inclination.'

'How long are we to stand and hear this insufferable
nonsense you talk?' cried Willoughby.

'But if Mr. Whitford was not consulted . . .' Dr.
Middleton said, and was overborne by Willoughby's
hurried: 'Oblige me, sir. — Oblige me, my good fellow!'
he swept his arm to Vernon, and gestiured a conducting
hand to Clara.

'Here is Mrs. Mountstuart !' she exclaimed.

Willoughby stared. Was it an irruption of a friend or
a foe? He doubted, and stood petrified between the
double-question.

Clara had seen Mrs. Mountstuart and Colonel De Craye
separating: and now the great lady sailed along the
sward like a royal barge in festival trim.

She looked friendly, but friendly to everybody, which
was always a frost on Willoughby, and terribly friendly
to Clara.

Coming up to her she whispered: 'News indeed!
Wonderful ! I could not credit his hint of it yesterday.
Are you satisfied?'

' Pray, Mrs. Mountstuart, take an opportunity to speak
to papa,' Clara whispered in return.

Mrs. Mountstuart bowed to Dr. Middleton, nodded to
Vernon, and swam upon WUlpughby, with: 'Is it?
But is it? Am I really to believe? You have? My
dear Sir Willoughby ? Really ? '

A CONSPIRACY OF THE ELEMENTS 251

The confounded gentleman heaved on a bare plank of
wreck in mid sea.

He could oppose only a paralyzed smile to the assault.

His intuitive discretion taught him to fall back a step,
while she said: 'So!' the plummet word of our mys-
terious deep fathoms; and he fell back further, saying:
'Madam?' in a tone advising her to speak low.

She recovered her volubility, followed his partial retreat
and dropped her voice :

'Impossible to have imagined it as an actual fact!
You were always full of surprises, but this 1 this ! No-
thing manlier, nothing more gentlemanly has ever been
done : nothing : nothing that so completely changes an
untenable situation into a comfortable and proper footing
for everybody. It is what I like : it is what I love : —
sound sense! Men are so selfish: one cannot persuade
them to be reasonable in such positions. But you. Sir
Willoughby, have shown wisdom and sentiment: the
rarest of all combinations in men.'

' Where have you . . . ? ' Willoughby contrived to say.

'Heard? The hedges, the housetops, everywhere.
All the neighbourhood will have it before nightfall. Lady
Busshe and Lady Culmer will soon be rushing here, and
declaring they never expected anything else, I do not
doubt. I am not so pretentious. I beg your excuse for
that "twice" of mine yesterday. Even if it hurt my
vanity, I should be happy to confess my error: I was
utterly out. But then I did not reckon on a fatal attach-
ment, I thought men were incapable of it. I thought we
women were the only poor creatures persecuted by a
fatality. It is a fatality! You tried hard to escape,
indeed you did. And she wUl do honour to your final
surrender, my dear friend. She is gentle, and very clever,
very : she is devoted to you : she will entertain excel-
lently. I see her like a flower in sunshine. She wiU

252 THE EGOIST

expand to a perfect hostess. Patteme will shine under
her reign ; you have my warrant for that. And so will
you. Yes, you flourish best when adored. It must be
adoration. You have been under a cloud of late. Years
ago I said it was a match, when no one supposed you
could stoop. Lady Busshe would have it was a screen,
and she was deemed high wisdom. The world will be
with you. All the women will be : excepting, of course,
Lady Busshe, whose pride is in prophesy; and she
will soon be too glad to swell the host. There, my
friend, your sincerest and oldest admirer congratulates-
you. I could not contain myself; I was compelled
to pour forth. And now I must go and be talked
to by Dr. Middleton. How does he take it? They
leave?'

'He is perfectly well,' said Willoughby, aloud, quite
distraught.

She acknowledged his just correction of her for running
on to an extreme in low-toned converse, though they stood
sufficiently isolated from the others. These had by this
time been joined by Colonel De Craye, and were all
chatting in a group — of himself, Willoughby horribly
suspected.

Clara was gone from him ! Gone ! but he remembered
his oath and vowed it again : not to Horace De Craye !
She was gone, lost, sunk into the world of waters of rival
men, and he determined that his whole force should b&
used to keep her from that man : the false friend who had.
supplanted him in her shallow heart, and might, if he suc-
ceeded, boast of having done it by simply appearing on.
the scene.

Willoughby intercepted Mrs. Mountstuart as she was
passing over to Dr. Middleton : 'My dear lady ! spare me
a minute.'

De Craye sauntered up, with a face of the friendliest

A CONSPIRACY OF THE ELEMENTS 253

humour: 'Never was man like you, Willoughby, for
shaking new patterns in a kaleidoscope.'

'Have you turned punster, Horace?' Willoughby re-
plied, smarting to find yet another in the demon secret,
and he drew Dr. Middleton two or three steps aside, and
hurriedly begged him to abstain from prosecuting the sub-
ject with Clara. 'We must try to make her happy as we
best can, sir. She may have her reasons — a young lady's
reasons!' He laughed, and left the Rev. Doctor con-
sidering within himself under the arch of his lofty frown
of stupefaction.

De Craye smiled slyly and winningly as he shadowed a
deep droop on the bend of his head before Clara, signifying
his absolute devotion to her service, and this present good
fruit for witness of his merits.

She smiled sweetly though vaguely. There was no
concealment of their intimacy.

'The battle is over,' Vernon said quietly, when Wil-
loughby had walked some paces beside Mrs. Mountstuart,
adding: 'You may expect to see Mr. Dale here. He
knows.'

Vernon and Clara exchanged one look, hard on his part,
in contrast with her softness, and he proceeded to the
house.

De Craye waited for a word or a promising look. He
was patient, being self-assured, and passed on.

Clara linked her arm with her father's once more, and
said, on a sudden brightness: 'Sirius, papa!'

He repeated it in the profoundest manner: 'Sirius!
And is there,' he asked, 'a feminine scintilla of sense in
that?'

'It is the name of the star I was thinking of, dear
papa.'

' It was the star observed by King Agamemnon before
. the sacrifice in Aulis. You were thinking of that ? But,

254 THE EGOIST

my love, my Iphigeneia, you have not a father who will
insist on sacrificing you.'

' Did I hear him tell you to humour me, papa ? '

Dr. Middleton humphed.

'Verily the dog-star rages in many heads,' he re-
sponded.

CHAPTER XLIV
DE. middleton: the ladies bleanob and Isabel:

AND ME. DALE

Claea looked up at the flying clouds. She travelled with
them now, and tasted freedom, but she prudently fore-
bore to vex her father ; she held herself in reserve.

They were summoned by the mid-day bell.

Few were speakers at the meal, few were eaters. Clara
was impelled to join it by her desire to study Mrs. Mount-
stuart's face. Willoughby was obliged to preside. It
was a meal of an assembly of mutes and plates, that
struck the ear like the well-known sound of a collection
of offerings in a church after an impressive exhortation
from the pulpit. A sally of Colonel De Craye's met the
reception given to a charity-boy's muffled burst of animal
spirits in the silence of the sacred edifice. Willoughby
tried poUtics with Dr. Middleton, whose regular appetite
preserved him from uncongenial speculations when the
hour for appeasing it had come^ and he alone did honour
to the dishes, replying to his host :

'Times are bad, you say, and we have a Ministry doing
with us what they will. Well, sir, and that being so, and
opposition a manner of kicking them into greater stability,
it is the time for wise men to retire within themselves,
with the steady determination of the seed in the earth

THE PATTERNE LADIES 255

to grow. Repose upon nature, sleep in firm faith, and
abide the seasons. That is my counsel to the weaker
party.'

The counsel was excellent, but it killed the topic.

Dr. Middleton's appetite was watched for the signal to
rise and breathe freely; and such is the grace accorded
to a good man of an untroubled conscience engaged in
doing his duty to himself, that he perceived nothing of
the general restlessness; he went through the dishes
calmly, and as calmly he quoted Milton to the ladies
Eleanor and Isabel, when the company sprang up all at
once upon his closing his repast. Vernon was taken away
from him by Willoughby. Mrs. Mountstuart beckoned
covertly to Clara. Willoughby should have had some-
thing to say to him. Dr. Middleton thought : the position
was not clear. But the situation was not disagreeable;
and he was in no serious hurry, though he wished to be
enlightened.

'This,' Dr. Middleton said to the spinster aunts, as he
accompanied them to the drawing-room, ' shall be no lost
day for me if I may devote the remainder of it to you.'

'The thimder, we fear, is not remote,' murmured one.

'We fear it is imminent,' sighed the other.

They took to chanting in alternation.

' — ^We are accustomed to peruse our Willoughby, and
we know him by a shadow.'

' — From his infancy to his glorious youth and his
established manhood.'

' — He was ever the soul of chivalry.'

' — Duty: duty first. The happiness of his family:
the well-being of his dependents.'

' — If proud of his name, it was not an over-weening
pride; it was founded in the conscious possession of
exalted qualities.'

' — He could be humble when occasion called for it.'

256 THE EGOIST

Dr. Middleton bowed to the litany, feeling that occasion
called for humbleness from him.

'Let us hope . . . !' he said, with unassumed peni-
tence on behalf of his inscrutable daughter.

The ladies resumed : —

' — Vernon Whitford, not of his blood, is his brother!'

' — A thousand instances! Lsetitia Dale remembers
them better than we.'

' — That any blow should strike him!'

' — That another should be in store for him!'

' — It seems impossible he can be quite misunder-
stood ! '

'Let us hope . . . !' said Dr. Middleton.

' — One would not deem it too much for the dispenser
of goodness to expect to be a little looked up to ! '

' — ^When he was a child he one day mounted a chair,
and there he stood in danger, would not let us touch him,
because he was taller than we, and we were to gaze. Do
you remember him, Eleanor? "I am the sun of the
house !" It was inimitable !'

' — Your feelings; he would have your feelings! He
was fourteen when his cousin Grace Whitford married,
and we lost him. They had been the greatest friends;
and it was long before he appeared among us. He has
never cared to see her since.'

' — But he has befriended her husband. Never has he
failed in generosity. His only fault is — '

' — His sensitiveness. And that is — '

' — His secret. And that — '

' — ^You are not to discover ! It is the same with him
in manhood. No one will accuse Willoughby Patterne
of a deficiency of manliaess : but what is it ? — he suffers,
as none suffer, if he is not loved. He himself is inalter-
ably constant in affection.'

' — ^What it is no one can say. We have lived with him

THE PATTERNE LADIES 257

all his life, and we know him ready to make any sacrifice :
only, he does demand the whole heart in return. And if
he doubts, he looks as we have seen him to-day.'

' — Shattered: as we have never seen him look before.'

'We will hope,' said Dr. Middleton, this time hastily.
He tingled to say 'what it was': he had it in him to
solve perplexity in their inquiry. He did say, adopting
familiar speech to suit the theme: 'You know, ladies,
we English come of a rough stock. A dose of rough deal-
ing in our youth does us no harm, braces us. Otherwise
we are likely to feel chilly : we grow too fine where tenuity
of stature is necessarily buffeted by gales, namely, in our
self-esteem. We are barbarians, on a forcing soil of
wealth, in a conservatory of comfortable security; but
still barbarians. So, you see, we shine at our best when
we are plucked out of that, to where hard blows are given,
in a state of war. In a state of war we are at home, our
men are high-minded fellows, Scipios and good legionaries.
In the state of peace we do not live in peace : our native
roughness breaks out in unexpected places, under ex-
traordinary aspects — ^tj^annies, extravagances, domestic
exactions : and if we have not had sharp early training
. . . within and without . . . the old-fashioned island-
instrument to drill into us the civilization of our masters,
the ancients, we show it by running here and there to
some excess. Ahem. Yet,' added the Rev. Doctor,
abandoning his effort to deliver a weighty truth obscurely
for the comprehension of dainty spinster ladies, the super-
abundance of whom in England was in his opinion largely
the cause of our decay as a people, 'yet I have not
observed this ultra-sensitiveness in Willoughby. He
has borne to hear more than I, certainly no example of
the frailty, could have endured.'

'He concealed it,' said the ladies. 'It is intense.'

'Then is it a disease?'

258 THE EGOIST

'It bears no explanation; it is mystic'

' It is a cultus, then, a form of self-worship.'

'Self!' they ejaculated. 'But is not Self indifferent
to others? Is it Self that craves for sympathy, love and
devotion?'

'He is an admirable host, ladies.'

' He is admirable in all respects.'

'Admirable must he be who can impress discerning
women, his life-long housemates, so favourably. He is, I
repeat, a perfect host.'

'He will be a perfect husband.'

'In all probability.'

' It is a certainty. Let him be loved and obeyed, he will
be guided. That is the secret for her whom he so fatally
loves. That, if we had dared, we would have hinted to
her. She will rule him through her love of him, and
through him all about her. And it will not be a rule he
submits to, but a love he accepts. If she could see it ! '

'If she were a metaphysician!' sighed Dr. Middleton.

' — But a sensitiveness so keen as his might — '

' — Fretted by an unsympathizing mate — '

' — In the end become, for the best of us is mortal — '

'—Callous!'

' — He would feel perhaps as much — '

' — Or more! — '

' — He would still be tender — '

' — But he might grow outwardly hard!'

Both ladies looked up at Dr. Middleton, as they revealed
the dreadful prospect.

'It is the story told of corns !' he said, sad as they.

The three stood drooping : the ladies with an attempt
to digest his remark ; the Rev. Doctor in dejection lest
his gallantry should no longer continue to wrestle with
his good sense.

He was rescued.

THE PATTERNE LADIES 259

The door opened and a footman announced :

•Mr. Dale.'

Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel made a sign to one
another of raising their hands.

They advanced to him, and welcomed him.

'Pray be seated, Mr. Dale. You have not brought us
bad news of our Lsetitia?'

'So rare is the pleasure of welcoming you here, Mr.
Dale, that we are in some alarm, when, as we trust, it
should be matter for unmixed congratulation.'

' Has Dr. Corney been doing wonders ? '

'I am indebted to him for the drive to your house,
ladies,' said Mr. Dale, a spare, close-buttoned gentleman,
with an Indian complexion deadened in the sick-chamber.
'It is unusual for me to stir from my precincts.'

'The Rev. Dr. Middleton.'

Mr. Dale bowed. He seemed surprised.

'You live in a splendid air, sir,' observed the Rev.
Doctor.

'I can profit little by it, sir,' replied Mr. Dale. He
asked the ladies: 'Will Sir Willoughby be disengaged?'

They consulted : ' He is with Vernon. We will send to
him.'

The beU was rung.

'I have had the gratification of making the acquaint-
ance of your daughter, Mr. Dale, a most estimable lady,'
said Dr. Middleton.

Mr. Dale bowed. ' She is honoured by your praises, sir.
To the best of my belief — I speak as a father — she merits
them. Hitherto I have had no doubts.'

'Of Lsetitia?' exclaimed the ladies; and spoke of her
as gentleness and goodness incarnate.

'Hitherto I have devoutly thought so,' said Mr. Dale.

'Surely she is the very sweetest nurse, the most devoted
.of daughters !'

260 THE EGOIST

'As far as concerns her duty to her father, I can say she
is that, ladies.'

'In all her relations, Mr. Dale !'

'It is my prayer,' he said.

The footman appeared. He announced that Sir Wil-
loughby was in the laboratory with Mr. Whitford, and the
door locked.

'Domestic business,' the ladies remarked. 'You know
Willoughby's diligent attention to affairs, Mr. Dale.'

'He is well?' Mr. Dale inquired.

'In excellent health.'

'Body and mind?'

'But, dear Mr. Dale, he is never Dl.'

'Ah ! For one to hear that who is never well ! And
Mr. Whitford is quite sound?'

'Sound? The question alarms me for myself,' said
Dr. Middleton. 'Sound as our Constitution, the Credit
of the country, the reputation of our Prince of poets.
I pray you to have no fears for him.'

Mr. Dale gave the mUd little sniff of a man thrown
deeper into perplexity.

He said: 'Mr. Whitford works his head; he is a hard
student; he may not be always, if I may so put it, at
home on worldly affairs.'

'Dismiss that defamatory legend of the student, Mr.
Dale ; and take my word for it, that he who persistently
works his head has the strongest for all affairs.'

'Ah ! Your daughter, sir, is here?'

'My daughter is here, sir, and will be most happy to
present her respects to the father of her friend Miss
Dale.'

'They are friends?'

' Very cordial friends.'

Mr. Dale administered another feebly pacifying sniff to
himself.

THE PATTERNE LADIES 261

'Laetitia!' he sighed in apostrophe, and swept his fore-
head with a hand seen to shake.

The ladies asked him anxiously whether he felt the
heat of the room; and one offered him a smelling-
bottle.

He thanked them. 'I can hold out until Sir Wil-
loughby comes.'

'We fear to disturb him when his door is locked, Mr.
Dale; but, if you wish it, we will venture on a message.
You have really no bad news of our Lsetitia? She left
us hurriedly this morning, without any leave-taking,
except a word to one of the maids, that your condition
required her immediate presence.'

' My condition ! And now her door is locked to me !
We have spoken through the door, and that is all. I
stand sick and stupefied between two locked doors,
neither of which wUl open, it appears, to give me the
enlightenment I need more than medicine.'

'Dear me!' cried Dr. Middleton, 'I am struck by your
description of your position, Mr. Dale. It would aptly
apply to our humanity of the present generation; and
were these the days when I sermonized, I could propose
that it should afford me an illustration for the pulpit.
For my part, when doors are closed I try not their locks ;
and I attribute my perfect equanimity, health even, to an
iminquiring acceptation of the fact that they are closed
to me. I read my page by the light I have. On the
contrary, the world of this day, if I may presume to quote
you for my purpose, is heard knocking at those two locked
doors of the secret of things on each side of us, and is
beheld standing sick and stupefied because it has got no
response to its knocking. Why, sir, let the world com-
pare the diverse fortunes of the beggar and the postman:
knock to give, and it is opened unto you : knock to crave,
.and it continues shut. I say, carry a letter to your

262 THE EGOIST

locked door, and you shall have a good reception: but
there is none that is handed out. For which reason . . .'

Mr. Dale swept a perspiring forehead, and extended his
hand in supplication; 'I am an invalid, Dr. Middleton,'
he said. 'I am unable to cope with analogies. I have
but strength for the slow digestion of facts.'

'For facts, we are bradypeptics to a man, sir. We
know not yet if nature be a fact or an effort to master one.
The world has not yet assimilated the first fact it stepped
on. We are still in the endeavour to make good blood of
the fact of our being.'

Pressing his hands at his temples, Mr. Dale moaned :
' My head twirls ; I did unwisely to come out. I came on
an impulse; I trust, honourable. I am unfit — I cannot
follow you. Dr. Middleton. Pardon me.'

'Nay, sir, let me say, from my experience of my
countrymen, that, if you do not follow me, and can ab-
stain from abusing me in consequence, you are magnani-
mous,' the Rev. Doctor replied, hardly consenting to let
go the man he had found to indemnify him for his gallant
service of acquiescing as a mute to the ladies, though he
knew his breathing robustfulness to be as an East wind
to weak nerves, and himself an engine of punishment
when he had been torn for a day from his books.

Miss Eleanor said : ' The enlightenment you need, Mr.
Dale? Can we enlighten you?'

'I think not,' he answered faintly. 'I think I will wait
for Sir Willoughby ... or Mr. Whitford. If I can keep
my strength. Or could I exchange — I fear to break down
— two words with the young lady who is, was . . . ?'

'Miss Middleton, my daughter, sir? She shall be at
your disposition ; I will bring her to you.' Dr. Middleton
stopped at the window. ' She, it is true, may better know
the mind of Miss Dale than I. But I flatter myself I
know the gentleman better. I think, Mr. Dale, addressing

THE PATTERNE LADIES 263

you as the lady's father, you will find me a persuasive,
I could be an impassioned, advocate in his interests.'

Mr. Dale was confounded; the weakly sapling caught
in a gust falls back as he did.

'Advocate?' he said. He had little breath.

' His impassioned advocate, I repeat : for I have the
highest opinion of him. You see, sir, I am acquainted
with the circumstances. I believe,' Dr. Middleton half
turned to the ladies, ' we must, until your potent induce-
ments, Mr. Dale, have been joined to my instances, and
we overcome what feminine scruples there may be, treat
the circumstances as not generally public. Our Strephon
may be chargeable with shyness. But if for the present
it is incumbent on us, in proper consideration for the
parties, not to be nominally precise, it is hardly requisite
in this household that we should be. He is now for
protesting indifference to the state. I fancy we under-
stand that phase of amatory frigidity. Frankly, Mr.
Dale, I was once in my life myself refused by a lady, and
I was not indignant, merely indifferent to the marriage-
tie.'

'My daughter has refused him, sir?'

'Temporarily it would appear that she has declined the
proposal.'

' He was at liberty ? ... he could honourably . . . ? '

' His best friend and nearest relative is your guarantee.'

'I know it ; I hear so : I am informed of that ; I have
heard of the proposal, and that he could honourably make
it. Still, I am helpless, I cannot move, imtU I am assured
that my daughter's reasons are such as a father need not
xmderline.'

'Does the lady, perchance, equivocate?'

'I have not seen her this morning; I rise late. I hear
an astounding accoimt of the cause for her departure from
Patteme, and I find her door locked to me — ^no answer.'

264 THE EGOIST

'It is that she has no reasons to give, and she feared the
demand for them.'

'Ladies!' dolorously exclaimed Mr. Dale.

'We guess the secret, we guess it!' they exclaimed in
reply; and they looked smilingly, as Dr. Middleton
looked.

'She had no reasons to give?' Mr. Dale spelt these
words to his understanding. 'Then, sir, she knew you
not adverse?'

'Undoubtedly, by my high esteem for the gentleman,
she must have known me not adverse. But she would not
consider me a principal. She could hardly have conceived
me an obstacle. I am simply the gentleman's friend. A
zealous friend, let me add.'

Mr. Dale put out an imploring hand ; it was too much
for him.

' Pardon me ; I have a poor head. And your daughter
the same, sir?'

' We will not measure it too closely, but I may say, my
daughter the same, sir. And likewise — may I not add ? —
these ladies.'

Mr. Dale made sign that be was overfilled. 'Where am
I ! And Lsetitia refused him?'

'Temporarily, let us assume. Will it not partly depend
on you, Mr. Dale!'

'But what strange things have been happening during
my daughter's absence from the cottage !' cried Mr. Dale,
betraying an elixir in his veins. 'I feel that I could laugh
if I did not dread to be thought insane. She refused his
hand, and he was at liberty to offer it ? My girl ! We are
all on our heads. The fairy-tales were nght and the
lesson-books were wrong. But it is really, it is really
very demoralizing. An invalid — and I am one, and no
momentary exhilaration will be taken for the contrary —
clings to the idea of stability, order. The slightest

THE PATTERNS LADIES 265

disturbance of the wonted course of things unsettles him.
Why, for years I have been prophesying it ! and for years
I have had everything against me, and now when it is
confirmed, I am wondering that I must not call myself a
fool!'

'And for years, dear Mr. Dale, this union, in spite
of counter-currents and human arrangements, has been
our Willoughby's constant preoccupation,' said Miss
Eleanor.

'His most cherished aim,' said Miss Isabel.

' The name was not spoken by me,' said Dr. Middleton.
'But it is out, and perhaps better out, if we would avoid
the chance of mystifications. I do not suppose we are
seriously committing a breach of confidence, though he
might have wished to mention it to you first himself. I
have it from Willoughby that last night he appealed to
your daughter, Mr. Dale — not for the first time, if I
apprehend him correctly; and unsuccessfully. He
despairs. I do not: supposing, that is, your assistance
vouchsafed to us. And I do not despair, because the
gentleman is a gentleman of worth, of acknowledged
worth. You know him well enough to grant me that.
I will bring you my daughter to help me in sounding his
praises.'

Dr. Middleton stepped through the window to the lawn
on an elastic foot, beaming with the happiness he felt
charged to confer on his friend Mr. Whitford.

' Ladies ! it passes all wonders,' Mr. Dale gasped.

'Willoughby's generosity does pass all wonders,' they
said in chorus.

The door opened : Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer were
announced.

266 THE EGOIST

CHAPTER XLV

THE PATTERNB LADIES: MB. DALE: LADY BUSSHE AND
LADY CULMER: WITH MRS. MOUNTSTUART JENKINSON

Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer entered spying to right
and left. At the sight of Mr. Dale in the room, Lady
Busshe murmured to her friend : 'Confirmation ! '

Lady Culmer murmured : ' Comey is quite reliable.'

'The man is his own best tonic'

' He is invaluable for the country.'

Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel greeted them.

The amiability of the Patteme ladies, combined with
their total eclipse behind their illustrious nephew, invited
enterprising women of the world to take liberties, and they
were not backward.

Lady Busshe said: 'Well? the news! we have the
outlines. Don't be astonished : we know the points : we
have heard the gun. I could have told you as much
yesterday. I saw it. And I guessed it the day before.
Oh ! I do believe in fatalities now. Lady Culmer and I
agree to take that view: it is the simplest. Well, and
are you satisfied, my dears?'

The ladies grimaced interrogatively. 'With what?'

'With it! with all! with her! with him!'

'Our Willoughby?'

'Can it be possible that they require a dose of Comey?'
Lady Busshe remarked to Lady Culmer.

' They play discretion to perfection,' said Lady Culmer.
'But, my dears, we are in the secret.'

'How did she behave?' whispered Lady Busshe. 'No
high flights and flutters, I do hope. She was well-
connected, they say; though I don't comprehend what

A GENERAL ASSEMBLY 267

they mean by a line of scholars — one thinks of a row of
pinafores : and she was pretty. That is well enough at
the start. It never will stand against brains. He had
the two in the house to contrast them, and . . . the re-
sult ! A young woman with brains — in a house — beats
all your Beauties. Lady Culmer and I have determined
on that view. He thought her a dehghtful partner for a
dance, and found her rather tiresome at the end of the
gallopade. I saw it yesterday, clear as daylight. She
did not understand him, and he did understand her.
That will be our report.'

' She is young : she will learn,' said the ladies, imeasily,
but in total ignorance of her meaning.

'And you are charitable, and always were. I remember
you had a good word for that girl Durham.'

Lady Busshe crossed the room to Mr. Dale, who was
turning over leaves of a grand book of the heraldic devices
of our great Families.

' Study it,' she said, ' study it, my dear Mr. Dale ; you
are in it, by right of possessing a clever and accomplished
daughter. At page 300 you will find the Patterne crest.
And mark me, she will drag you iato the Peerage before
she has done — relatively, you know. Sir Willoughby and
wife will not be contented to sit down and manage the
estates. Has not Laetitia immense ambition? And
very creditable, I say ! '

Mr. Dale tried to protest something. He shut the book,
examined the binding, flapped the cover with a finger,
hoped her ladyship was in good health, alluded to his own
and the strangeness of the bird out of the cage.

'You will probably take up your residence here, in a
larger and handsomer cage, Mr. Dale.'

He shook his head. 'Do I apprehend . . . ?' he said.

'I know' said she.

'Dear me, can it be?'

268 THE EGOIST

Mr. Dale gazed upward, with the feelings of one
awakened late to see a world alive in broad daylight.

Lady Busshe dropped her voice. She took the liberty
permitted to her with an inferior in station, while treating
him to a tone of familiarity in acknowledgement of his ex-
pected rise : which is high breediag, or the exact measure-
ment of social dues.

' Lsetitia will be happy, you may be sure. I love to see
a long and faithful attachment rewarded — ^love it ! Her
tale is the triumph of patience. Far above Grizzel ! No
woman will be ashamed of pointing to Lady Patteme.
You are uncertain ? You are in doubt ? Let me hear —
as low as you like. But there is no doubt of the new
shifting of the scene ? — no doubt of the proposal ? Dear
Mr. Dale ! a very little louder. You are here because — ?
of course you wish to see Sir Willoughby. She? I did
not catch you quite. She ? ... it seems, you say . . . ? '

Lady Culmer said to the Patterne ladies :

'You must have had a distressiug time. These affairs
always mount up to a climax, unless people are very well
bred. We saw it coming. Naturally we did not expect
such a transformation of brides : who could ? If I had
laid myself down on my back to think, I should have had
it. I am unerring when I set to speculating on my back.
One is cooler : ideas come ; they have not to be forced.
That is why I am brighter on a dull winter afternoon, on
the sofa, beside my tea-service, than at any other season.
However, your trouble is over. When did the Middletons
leave?'

'The Middletons leave?' said the ladies.

' Dr. Middleton and his daughter.'

'They have not left us.'

'The Middletons are here?'

'They are here, yes. Why should they have left
Patterne?'

A GENERAL ASSEMBLY 269

'Why?'

' Yes. They are likely to stay some days longer.'

'Goodness!'

' There is no ground for any report to the contrary, Lady
Culmer.'

'No ground!'

Lady Culmer called out to Lady Busshe.

A cry came back from that startled dame.

' She has refused him ! '

'Who?'

'-SAehas!'

• She ?— Sir Willoughby ? '

' Refused ! — declines the honour.'

'Oh! never! No, that carries the incredible beyond
romance ! But is he perfectly at . . . ? '

' Quite, it seems. And she was asked in due form and
refused.'

'No, and no again!'

'My dear, I have it from Mr. Dale.'

' Mr. Dale, what can be the signification of her conduct ! '

' Indeed, Lady Culmer,' said Mr. Dale, not unpleasantly
agitated by the interest he excited, in spite of his astonish-
ment at a public discussion of the matter in this house, ' I
am in the dark. Her father should know, but I do not.
Her door is locked to me; I have not seen her. I am
absolutely in the dark. I am a recluse. I have forgotten
the ways of the world. I should have supposed her father
would first have been addressed.'

'Tut-tut. Modem gentlemen are not so formal ; they
are creatures of impulse and take a pride in it. He spoke.
We settle that. But where did you get this tale of a
refusal ? '

'I have it from Dr. Middleton.'

'From Dr. Middleton!' shouted Lady Busshe.

'The Middletons are here,' said Lady Culmer.

270 THE EGOIST

'What whirl are we in?' Lady Busshe got up, ran
two or three steps and seated herself in another chair.
'Oh! do let us proceed upon system. If not, we shall
presently be rageing; we shall be dangerous. The
Middletons are here, and Dr. Middleton himself com-
municates to Mr. Dale that Lsetitia Dale has refused the
hand of Sir Willoughby, who is ostensibly engaged to his
own daughter ! And pray, Mr. Dale, how did Dr. Middle-
ton speak of it ? Compose yourself ; there is no violent
hurry, though our sympathy with you and our interest in
all the parties does perhaps agitate us a little. Quite at
your leisure — ^speak ! '

'Madam . . . Lady Busshe.' Mr. Dale gulped a ball
in his throat. 'I see no reason why I should not speak.
I do not see how I can have been deluded. The Miss;
Patternes heard him. Dr. Middleton began upon it, not
I. I was imaware, when I came, that it was a refusal.
I had been informed that there was a proposal. My
authority for the tale was positive. The object of my
visit was to assure myself of the integrity of my daughter's
conduct. She had always the highest sense of honour.
But passion is known to mislead, and there was this most
strange report. I feared that our humblest apologies were
due to Dr. Middleton and his daughter. I know the charm
Lsetitia can exercise. Madam, in the plainest language,
without a possibility of my misapprehending him. Dr.
Middleton spoke of himself as the advocate of the suitor
for my daughter's hand. I have a poor head. I sup-
posed at once an amicable rupture between Sir Willoughby
and Miss Middleton, or that the version which had reached
me of their engagement was not strictly accurate. My
head is weak. Dr. Middleton's language is trying to a head
like mine; but I can speak positively on the essential
points : he spoke of himself as ready to be the impassioned
advocate of the suitor for my daughter's hand. Those

A GENERAL ASSEMBLY 271

were his words. I understood him to entreat me to
intercede with her. Nay, the name was mentioned.
There was no concealment. I am certain there could not
be a misapprehension. And my feelLugs were touched by
his anxiety for Sir Willoughby's happiness. I attributed
it to a sentiment upon which I need not dwell. Im-
passioned advocate, he said.'

'We are in a perfect maelstrom!' cried Lady Busshe,
turning to everybody.

'It is a complete hurricane !' cried Lady Culmer.

A light broke over the faces of the Patterne ladies.
They exchanged it with one another.

They had been so shocked as to be almost offended by
Lady Busshe, but their natural gentleness and habitual
submission rendered them unequal to the task of checking
her.

'Is it not,' said Miss Eleanor, 'a misunderstanding that
a change of names will rectify ? '

'This is by no means the first occasion,' said Miss
Isabel, 'that Willoughby has pleaded for his cousin
Vernon.'

'We deplore extremely the painful error into which
Mr. Dale has fallen.'

'It springs, we now perceive, from an entire misappre-
hension of Dr. Middleton's.'

'Vernon was in his mind. It was clear to us.'

'Impossible that it could have been Willoughby !'

'You see the impossibility, the error !'

'And the Middletons here!' said Lady Busshe. 'Oh!
if we leave unilluminated we shall be the laughing-stock
of the county. Mr. Dale, please, wake up. Do you see?
You may have been mistaken.'

'Lady Busshe,' he woke up ; 'I may have mistaken Dr.
Middleton ; he has a language that I can compare only to
a review-day of the field forces. ' But I have the story on

272 THE EGOIST

authority that I cannot question : it is confirmed by my
daughter's unexampled behaviour. And if I live through
this day I shall look about me as a ghost to-morrow.'

'Dear Mr. Dale!' said the Patteme ladies com-
passionately.

Lady Busshe murmured to them : 'You know the two
did not agree ; they did not get on : I saw it ; I predicted
it.'

' She will understand him in time/ said they.

'Never. And my belief is, they have parted by con-
sent, and Letty Dale wins the day at last. Yes, now I do
believe it.'

The ladies maintained a decided negative, but they
knew too much not to feel perplexed, and they betrayed it,
though they said : ' Dear Lady Busshe ! is it credible, in
decency ? '

'Dear Mrs. Mountstuart !' Lady Busshe invoked her
great rival appearing among them: 'You come most
opportunely ; we are in a state of inextricable confusion :
we are bordering on frenzy. You, and none but you, can
help us. You know, you always know ; we hang on you.
Is there any truth in it? a particle?'

Mrs. Mountstuart seated herself regally. 'Ah! Mr.
Dale!' she said, inclining to him. 'Yes, dear Lady
Busshe, there is a particle.'

' Now, do not roast us ! You can ; you have the art.
I have the whole story. That is, I have a part. I mean,
I have the outlines. I cannot be deceived, but you can fill
them in, I know you can. I saw it yesterday. Now, tell
us, tell us. It must be quite true or utterly false. Which
is it?'

'Be precise.'

'His fatality! you called her. Yes, I was sceptical.
But here we have it all come round again, and if the tale is
true, I shall own you infallible. Has he? — and she?'

A GENERAL ASSEMBLY 273

'Both.'

'And the Middletons here? They have not gone;
they keep the field. And more astounding, she refuses
him ! And to add to it, Dr. Middleton intercedes with
Mr. Dale for Sir Willoughby !'

'Dr. Middleton intercedes I' This was rather astonish-
ing to Mrs. Mountstuart.

' For Vernon,' Miss Eleanor emphasized.

'For Vernon Whitford, his cousin,' said Miss Isabel,
still more emphatically.

' Who,' said Mrs. Mountstuart, with a sovereign lift and
turn of her head, 'speaks of a refusal?'

'I have it from Mr. Dale,' said Lady Busshe.

'I had it, I thought, distinctly from Dr. Middleton,'
said Mr. Dale.

'That Willoughby proposed to Lsetitia for his cousin
Vernon, Dr. Middleton meant,' said Miss Eleanor.

Her sister followed: 'Hence this really ridiculous
misconception! — sad indeed,' she added, for balm to
Mr. Dale. ' Willoughby was Vernon's proxy. His cousin,
if not his first, is ever the second thought with him.'

'But can we continue . . .?'

'Such a discussion!'

Mrs. Mountstuart gave them a judicial hearing. They
were regarded in the county as the most indulgent of
nonentities, and she as little as Lady Busshe was re-
strained from the burning topic in their presence. She
pronoimced :

'Each party is right and each is wrong.'

A cry: 'I shall shriek!' came from Lady Busshe.

'Cruel !' groaned Lady Culmer.

'Mixed, you are all wrong. Disentangled, you are
each of you right. Sir Willoughby does think of his
cousin Vernon; he is anxious to establish him; he is
the author of a proposal to that effect.'

274 THE EGOIST

'We know it!' the Patterne ladies exclaimed. 'And
Laetitia rejected poor Vernon once more !'

'Who spoke of Miss Dale's rejection of Mr. Whitford?'

'Is he not rejected?' Lady Culmer inquired.

'It is in debate, and at this moment being decided.'

'Oh! do be seated, Mr. Dale,' Lady Busshe implored
him, rising to thrust him back to his chair if necessary.
'Any dislocation, and we are thrown out again! We
must hold together if this riddle is ever to be read.
Then, dear Mrs. Mountstuart, we are to say that there is
no truth in the other story?'

'You are to say nothing of the sort, dear Lady Busshe.'

'Be merciful ! And what of the fatality?'

'As positive as the Pole to the needle.'

'She has not refused him?'

'Ask your own sagacity.'

'Accepted?'

'Wait.'

'And all the world 's ahead of me I Now, Mrs. Mount-
stuart, you are oracle. Riddles, if you like — only speak !
If we can't have corn, give us husks.'

'Is any one of us able to anticipate events, Lady
Busshe?'

'Yes. I believe that you are. I bow to you. I do
sincerely. So it 's another person for Mr. Whitford ?
You nod. And it is our Lsetitia for Sir Willoughby?
You smile. You would not deceive me? A very little,
and I run about crazed and howl at your doors. And
Dr. Middleton is made to play blind man in the midst?
And the other person is — now I see day ! An amicable
rupture, and a smooth new arrangement ! She has
money; she was never the match for our hero; never;
I saw it yesterday, and before, often: and so he hands
her over — tuthe - rum - tum - tum, tuthe - rum - turn - tum.'
Lady Busshe struck a quick march on her knee : ' Now

SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP 275

isn't that clever guessing? The shadow of a clue for
me! And because I know human nature. One peep,
and I see the combination in a minute. So he keeps the
money in the family, becomes a benefactor to his cousin
by getting rid of the girl, and succumbs to his fatality.
Rather a pity he let it ebb and flow so long. Time counts
the tides, you know. But it improves the story. I defy
any other county in the kingdom to produce one fresh
and living to equal it. Let me tell you I suspected Mr.
Whitford, and I hinted it yesterday.'

'Did you indeed!' said Mrs. Mountstuart, humouring
her excessive acuteness.

'I really did. There is that dear good man on his feet
again. And looks agitated again.'

Mr. Dale had been compelled both by the lady's voice
and his interest in the subject, to listen. He had listened
more than enough: he was exceedingly nervous. He
held on by his chair, afraid to quit his moorings, and:
'Manners!' he said to himself unconsciously aloud, as he
cogitated on the libertine way with which these charted
great ladies of the district discussed his daughter. He
was heard and unnoticed. The supposition, if any,
would have been that he was admonishing himself.

At this juncture Sir Willoughby entered the drawing-
room by the garden-window, and simultaneously Dr.
Middleton by the door.

CHAPTER XLVI

THE SCENE OF SIK WILLOTJGHBT's GENERALSHIP

History, we may fear, will never know the qualities of
leadership inherent in Sir Willoughby Patterne to fit
iiim for the post of Commander of an army, seeing that

276 THE EGOIST

he avoided the fatigues of the service and preferred the
honours bestowed in his country upon the quiet ad-
ministrators of their own estates: but his possession of
particular gifts, which are military, and especially of the
proleptic mind, which is the stamp and sign-warrant of
the heaven-sent General, was displayed on every urgent
occasion when, in the midst of difficulties likely to have
extinguished one less alert than he to the threatening
aspect of disaster, he had to manceuvre himself.

He had received no intimation of Mr. Dale's presence in
his house, nor of the arrival of the dreaded women Lady
Busshe and Lady Culmer: his locked door was too great
a terror to his domestics. Having finished with Vernon,
after a tedious endeavour to bring the fellow to a sense of
the policy of the step urged on him, he walked out on the
lawn with the desire to behold the opening of an interview
not promising to lead to much, and possibly to profit
by its failure. Clara had been prepared, according to
his directions, by Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, as Vernon
had been prepared by him. His wishes, candidly and
kindly expressed both to Vernon and Mrs. Mountstuart,
were, that since the girl appeared disinclined to make
him a happy man, she would make one of his cousin.
Intimating to Mrs. Mountstuart that he would be
happier without her, he alluded to the benefit of the girl's
money to poor old Vernon, the general escape from a
scandal if old Vernon could manage to catch her as she
dropped, the harmonious arrangement it would be for all
parties. And only on the condition of her taking Vernon,
would he consent to give her up. This he said impera-
tively: adding, that such was the meaning of the news
she had received relating to Lsetitia Dale. From what
quarter had she^ received it? he asked. She shuffled in
her reply, made a gesture to signify that it was in the air,
universal, and fell upon the proposed arrangement. He

SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP 277

would listen to none of Mrs. Mountstuart's woman-of-the-
world instances of the folly of pressing it upon a girl who
had shown herself a girl of spirit. She foretold the
failure. He would not be advised; he said: 'It is my
scheme'; and perhaps the look of mad benevolence
about it induced the lady to try whether there was a
chance that it would hit the madness in our nature, and
somehow succeed or lead to a pacification. Sir Willoughby
condescended to arrange things thus for Clara's good;
he would then proceed to realize his own. Such was the
face he put upon it. We can wear what appearance we
please before the world until we are found out, nor is the
world's praise knocking upon hollowness always hollow
music ; but Mrs. Mountstuart's laudation of his kindness
and simplicity disturbed him; for though he had re-
covered from his rebuff enough to imagine that Lsetitia
could not refuse him under reiterated pressure, he had
let it be supposed that she was a submissive handmaiden
throbbing for her elevation; and Mrs. Mountstuart's
belief in it afflicted his recent bitter experience; his
footing was not perfectly secure. Besides, assuming it
to be so, he considered the sort of prize he had won ; and
a spasm of downright hatred of a world for which we make
mighty sacrifices to be repaid in a worn, thin, com-
paratively valueless coin, troubled his counting of his
gains. Lsetitia, it was true, had not passed through
other hands in coming to him, as Vernon would know it
to be Clara's case : time only had worn her : but the com-
fort of the reflection was annoyed by the physical contrast
of the two. Hence an unusual melancholy in his tone,
that Mrs. Mountstuart thought touching. It had the
scenic effect on her which greatly contributes to delude
the wits. She talked of him to Clara as being a man
who had revealed an unsuspected depth.
, Vernon took the communication curiously. He seemed

278 THE EGOIST

readier to be in love with his benevolent relative than
with the lady. He was confused, undisguisedly moved,
said the plan was impossible, out of the question, but
thanked Willoughby for the best of intentions, thanked
him warmly. After saying that the plan was impossible,
the comical fellow allowed himself to be pushed forth on
the lawn to see how Miss Middleton might have come out
of her interview with Mrs. Mountstuart. Willoughby
observed Mrs. Mountstuart meet him, usher him to the
place she had quitted among the shrubs, and return to the
open turf-spaces. He sprang to her.

'She will listen,' Mrs. Mountstuart said: 'She Ukes
him, respects him, thinks he is a very sincere friend, clever,
a scholar, and a good mountaineer ; and thinks you mean
very kindly. So much I have impressed on her, but I
have not done much for Mr. Whitford.'

' She consents to listen,' said Willoughby, snatching at
that as the death-blow to his friend Horace.

'She consents to listen, because you have arranged it
so that if she declined she would be rather a savage.'

' You think it will have no result ? '

' None at all.'

' Her listening will do.'

'And you must be satisfied with it.'

'We shall see.'

' " An3^huig for peace," she says : and I don't say that
a gentleman with a tongue would not have a chance. She
wishes to please you.'

'Old Vernon has no tongue for women, poor fellow!
You will have us be spider or fly, and if a man can't spin
a web, all he can hope is not to be caught in one. She
knows his history too, and that won't be in his favour.
How did she look when you left them ? '

' Not so bright : like a bit of china that wants dusting.
She looked a trifle gauche, it struck me; more Uke a

SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP 279

country girl with the hoyden taming in her than the
well-bred creature she is. I did not suspect her to have
feeling. You must remember, Sir WUloughby, that she
has obeyed your wishes, done her utmost: I do think
we may say she has made some amends : and if she
is to blame she repents, and you will not insist too
far.'

'I do insist,' said he. ^

'Beneficent, but a tyrant!'

'Well, well.' He did not dislike the character.

They perceived Dr. Middleton wandering over the lawn,
and Willoughby went to him to put him on the wrong
track: Mrs. Mountstuart swept into the drawing-room.
Willoughby quitted the Rev. Doctor, and hung about the
bower where he supposed his pair of dupes had by this
time ceased to stutter mutually: — or what if they had
found the word of harmony? He could bear that, just
bear it. He rounded the shrubs, and behold, both had
vanished. The trellis decorated emptiuess. His idea
was, that they had soon discovered their inability to be
turtles : and desiring not to lose a moment while Clara
was fretted by the scene, he rushed to the drawing-room
with the hope of lighting on her there, getting her to
himself, and finally, urgently, passionately offering her
the sole alternative of what she had immediately rejected.
Why had he not used passion before, instead of limping
crippled between temper and policy? He was capable
of it : as soon as imagination in him conceived his
personal feelings unwovmded and imimperilled, the might
of it inspired him with heroical confidence, and Clara
grateful, Clara softly moved, led him to think of Clara
melted. Thus anticipating her he burst into the
room.

One step there warned him that he was in the jaws of
the world. We have the phrase, that a man is himself,

280 THE EGOIST

under certain trying circumstances. There is no need to
say it of Sir WUloughby: he was thrice himself when
danger menaced, himself inspired him. He could read at
a single glance the Polyphemus eye in the general head of
a company. Lady Busshe, Lady Culmer, Mrs. Mount-
stuart, Mr. Dale, and a similarity in the variety of their
expressions that made up one giant eye for him, perfectly,
if awfully, legible. He discerned the fact that his demon
secret was abroad, universal. He ascribed it to fate.
He was in the jaws of the world, on the world's teeth.
This time he thought Lsetitia must have betrayed him,
and bowing to Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer, gallantly
pressing their fingers and responding to their becks and
archnesses, he ruminated on his defences before he should
accost her father. He did not want to be alone with the
man, and he considered how his presence might be made
useful.

'I am glad to see you, Mr. Dale. Pray, be seated. Is
it nature asserting her strength? or the efficacy of medi-
cine? I fancy it can't be both. You have brought us
back your daughter?'

Mr. Dale sank into a chair, unable to resist the hand
forcing him.

'No, Sir Willoughby, no. I have not; I have not
seen her since she came home this morning from Pat-
teme.'

' Indeed ? She is unwell ? '

' I cannot say. She secludes herself.'

' Has locked herself in,' said Lady Busshe.

Willoughby threw her a smile. It made them intimate.

This was an advantage against the world, but an ex-
posure of himself to the abominable woman.

Dr. Middleton came up to Mr. Dale to apologize for not
presenting his daughter Clara, whom he could find neither
in nor out of the house.

SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP 281

. 'We have in Mr. Dale, as I suspected,' he said to Wil-
loughby, 'a stout ally.'

' If I may beg two minutes with you, Sir Willoughby,'
said Mr, Dale.

'Your visits are too rare for me to allow of your
numbering the minutes,' Willoughby replied. 'We
cannot let Mr. Dale escape us now that we have him, I
think. Dr. Middleton.*

' Not without ransom,' said the Rev. Doctor.

Mr. Dale shook his head. 'My strength. Sir Wil-
loughby, will not sustain me long.'

'You are at home, Mr. Dale.'

' Not far from home, in truth, but too far for an invalid
beginning to grow sensible of weakness.'

'You will regard Patteme as your home, Mr. Dale,'
Willoughby repeated for the world to hear.

'Unconditionally?' Dr. Middleton inquired with a
humourous air of dissenting.

Willoughby gave him a look that was coldly courteous,
and then he looked at Lady Busshe. She nodded imper-
ceptibly. Her eyebrows rose, and Willoughby returned
a similar nod.

Translated, the signs ran thus :

' — Pestered by the Rev. gentleman: — I see you are.
Is the story I have heard correct? — Possibly it may err
in a few details.'

This was fettering himself in loose manacles.

But Lady Busshe would not be satisfied with the com-
pliment of the intimate looks and nods. She thought
she might still be behind Mrs. Mountstuart ; and she was
a bold woman, and anxious about him, half-crazed by the
riddle of the pot she was boiling in, and having very few
minutes to spare.

Not extremely reticent by nature, privileged by station,
and made intimate with him by his covert looks, she

282 THE EGOIST

stood up to him. 'One word to an old friend. Which
is the father of the fortunate creature ? I don't know how
to behave to them.'

No time was afforded him to be disgusted with her vul-
garity and audacity.

He replied, feeling her rivet his gyves : 'The house will
be empty to-morrow.'

'I see. A decent withdrawal, and very well cloaked.
We had a tale here of her running off to decline the
honour, afraid, or on her dignity or something.'

How was it that the woman was ready to accept the
altered posture of affairs in his house — ^if she had received
a hint of them? He forgot that he had prepared her in
self-defence.

' From whom did you have that ?' he asked.

'Her father. And the lady aunts declare it was the
cousin she refused!'

Willoughby's brain turned over. He righted it for
action, and crossed the room to the ladies Eleanor and
Isabel. His ears tingled. He and his whole story dis-
cussed in public! Himself unroofed! And the marvel
that he of all men should be in such a tangle, naked and
blown on, condemned to use his cunningest arts to un-
wind and cover himself, struck him as though the lord
of his kind were running the gauntlet of a legion of imps.
He felt their lashes.

The ladies were talking to Mrs. Mountstuart and Lady
Culmer of Vernon and the suitableness of Lsetitia to a
scholar. He made sign to them, and both rose.

'It is the hour for your drive. To the cottage! Mr.
Dale is ill. She must come. Her sick father ! No delay,
going or returning. Bring her here at once.'

'Poor man!' they sighed: and 'Willoughby,' said
one, and the other said: 'There is a strange miscon-
ception you will do well to correct.'

SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP 283

They were about to murmur what it was. He swept his
hand round, and excusing themselves to their guests,
obediently they retired.

Lady Busshe at his entreaty remained, and took a seat
beside Lady Culmer and Mrs. Mountstuart.

She said to the latter: 'You have tried scholars.
What do you think?'

' Excellent, but hard to mix,' was the reply.

' I never make experiments,' said Lady Culmer.

'Some one must!' Mrs. Mountstuart groaned over
her dull dinner-party.

Lady Busshe consoled her. 'At any rate, the loss of
a scholar is no loss to the county.'

'They are well enough in towns,' Lady Culmer said.

' And then I am sure you must have them by themselves.'

'We have nothing to regret.'

'My opinion.'

The voice of Dr. Middleton in colloquy with Mr. Dale
swelled on a melodious thimder : ' For whom else should
I plead as the passionate advocate I proclaimed myself
to you, sir? There is but one man known to me who
would move me to back him upon such an adventure.
Willoughby, join me. I am informing Mr. Dale . . .'

Willoughby stretched his hands out to Mr. Dale to sup-
port him on his legs, though he had shown no sign of a
wish to rise.

'You are feeling unwell, Mr. Dale.'

'Do I look very ill, Sir Willoughby?'

'It will pass. Lsetitia will be with us in twenty
minutes.'

Mr. Dale struck his hands in a clasp. He looked alarm-
ingly ill, and satisfactorily revealed to his host how he
could be made to look so.

"I was informing Mr. Dale that the petitioner enjoys
. our concurrent good wishes : and mine in no degree less

284 THE EGOIST

than yours, Willoughby,' observed Dr. Middleton, whose
billows grew the bigger for a check. He supposed him-
self speaking confidentially. 'Ladies have the trick;
they have, I may say, the natural disposition for playing
enigma now and again. Pressure is often a sovereign
specific. Let it be tried upon her all round, from every
radiating line of the circle. You she refuses. Then I
venture to propose myself to appeal to her. My daughter
has assuredly an esteem for the applicant that will ani-
mate a woman's tongue in such a case. The ladies of
the house will not be backward. Lastly, if necessary, we
trust the lady's father to add his instances. My pre-
scription is, to fatigue her negatives ; and where no rooted
objection exists, I maintain it to be the unfailing receipt
for the conduct of a siege. No woman can say No for
ever. The defence has not such resources against even
a single assailant, and we shall have solved the problem
of continuous motion before she will have learnt to deny
in perpetuity. That I stand on.'

Willoughby glanced at Mrs. Mountstuart.

'What is that?' she said. 'Treason to our sex, Dr.
Middleton?'

'I think I heard, that no woman can say No for ever !'
remarked Lady Busshe.

'To a loyal gentleman, ma'am: assuming the field
of the recurring request to be not unholy ground; con-
secrated to affirmatives rather.'

Dr. Middleton was attacked by three angry bees. They
made him say Yes and No alternately so many times that
he had to admit in men a shiftier yieldingness than
women were charged with.

Willoughby gesticulated as mute chorus on the side of
the ladies; and a little show of party spirit like that,
coming upon their excitement under the topic, inclined
them to him genially.

SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP 285

He drew Mr. Dale away while the conflict subsided in
sharp snaps of rifles and an interval rejoinder of a
cannon.

Mr. Dale had shown by signs that he was growing fret-
fully restive under his burden of doubt.

'Sir Willoughby, I have a question. I beg you to lead
me where I may ask it. I know my head is weak.'

'Mr. Dale, it is answered when I say that my house is
your home, and that Lsetitia will soon be with us.'

'Then this report is true !'

' I know nothing of reports. You are answered.'

' Can my daughter be accused of any shadow of false-
ness, dishonourable dealing?'

'As little as I.'

Mr. Dale scanned his face. He saw no shadow.

' For I should go to my grave bankrupt if that could be
said of her; and I have never yet felt poor, though you
know the extent of a pensioner's income. Then this tale
of a refusal . . . ? '

'Is nonsense.'

'She has accepted?'

'There are situations, Mr. Dale, too delicate to be
clothed in positive definitions.'

'Ah, Sir Willoughby, but it becomes a father to see
that his daughter is not forced into delicate situations.
I hope all is well. I am confused. It may be my head.
She puzzles me. You are not . . . Can I ask it here?
You are quite? . . . Will you moderate my anxiety?
My infirmities must excuse me.'

Sir Willoughby conveyed by a shake of the head and a
pressure of Mr. Dale's hand, that he was not, and that he
was quite.

'Dr. Middleton?' said Mr. Dale.

' He leaves us to-morrow.'
, 'Really !' The invalid wore a look as if wine had been

286 THE EGOIST

poured into him. He routed his host's calculations by
calling to the Rev. Doctor. 'We are to lose you, sir?'

WOloughby attempted an interposition, but Dr. Middle-
ton crashed through it like the lordly organ swallowing a
flute.

' Not before I score my victory, Mr. Dale, and establish
my friend upon his rightful throne.'

'You do not leave to-morrow, sir?'

'Have you heard, sir, that I leave to-morrow?'

Mr. Dale turned to Sir Willoughby.

The latter said : ' Clara named to-day. To-morrow, I
thought preferable.'

'Ah?' Dr. Middleton towered on the swelling exclama-
tion, but with no dark light. He radiated splendidly.
'Yes, then, to-morrow. That is, if we subdue the
lady.'

He advanced to WUloughby, seized his hand, squeezed
it, thanked him, praised him. He spoke under his breath,
for a wonder; but: 'We are in your debt lastingly,
my friend,' was heard, and he was impressive, he seemed
subdued, and saying aloud ; ' Though I should wish to aid
in the reduction of that fortress,' he let it be seen that his
mind was rid of a load.

Dr. Middleton partly stupefied Willoughby by his way
of taking it, but his conduct was too serviceable to allow
of speculation on his readiness to break the match. It
was the turning-point of the engagement.

Lady Busshe made a stir.

'I cannot keep my horses waiting any longer,' she said,
And beckoned. Sir Willoughby was beside her immedi-
ately. 'You are admirable! perfect! Don't ask me to
hold my tongue. I retract, I recant. It is a fatality.
I have resolved upon that view. You could stand the
shot of beauty, not of brains. That is our report. There !
And it 's delicious to ieel that the county wins you. No

SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP 287

tea. I cannot possibly wait. And, oh ! here she is.
I must have a look at her. My dear Lsetitia Dale !'

Willoughby hurried to Mr. Dale.

'You are not to be excited, sir: compose yourself.
You wUl recover and be strong to-morrow : you are at
home ; you are in your own house ; you are in Lsetitia's
drawing-room. All will be clear to-morrow. Till to-
morrow we talk riddles by consent. Sit, I beg. You stay
with us.'

He met Lsetitia and rescued her from Lady Busshe,
murmuring, with the air of a lover who says, 'my love!
my sweet !' that she had done rightly to come and come
at once.

Her father had been thrown into the proper condition
of clammy nervousness to create the impression. Lsetitia's
anxiety sat prettily on her long eyelashes as she bent over
him in his chair.

Hereupon Dr. Comey appeared; and his name had a
bracing effect on Mr. Dale. 'Comey has come to drive
me to the cottage,' he said. 'I am ashamed of this public
exhibition of myself, my dear. Let us go. My head is a
poor one.'

Dr. Corney had been intercepted. He broke from Sir
Willoughby with a dozen httle nods of accurate under-
standing of him, even to beyond the mark of the com-
munications. He touched his patient's pulse lightly,
briefly sighed with professional composure, and pro-
nounced : ' Rest. Must not be moved. No, no,
nothing serious,' he quieted Lsetitia's fears, 'but rest,
rest. A change of residence for a night will tone him.
I will bring him a draught in the course of the evening.
Yes, yes, I '11 fetch everything wanted from the cottage
for you and for him. Repose on Corney's forethought.'

'You are sure. Dr. Corney?' said Lsetitia, frightened
on her father's account and on her own.

288 THE EGOIST

'Which aspect will be the best for Mr. Dale's bed-
room?' the hospitable ladies Eleanor and Isabel in-
quired.

'South-east, decidedly: let him have the morning
sun : a warm air, a vigorous air and a bright air, and the
patient wakes and sings in his bed.'

StUl doubtful whether she was in a trap, Lsetitia
whispered to her father of the privacy and comforts of
his home.

He replied to her that he thought he would rather be
in his own home.

Dr. Comey positively pronounced No to it.

Lsetitia breathed again of home, but with the sigh of
one overborne.

The ladies Eleanor and Isabel took the word from
Willoughby, and said: 'But you are at home, my dear.
This is your home. Your father will be at least as well
attended here as at the cottage.'

She raised her eyelids on them mournfully, and by
chance diverted her look to Dr. Middleton, quite by
chance.

It spoke eloquently to the assembly of all that WU-
loughby desired to be imagined.

' But there is Crossj ay, ' she cried. ' My cousin has gone,
and the boy is left alone. I cannot have him left alone.
If we, if, Dr. Comey, you are sure it is unsafe for papa
to be moved to-day, Crossj ay must ... he cannot be
left.'

'Bring him with you, Corney,' said Sir Willoughby:
and the little doctor heartily promised that he would, in
the event of his finding Crossj ay at the cottage, which he
thought a distant probability.

'He gave me his word he would not go out tUl my
return,' said Lsetitia.

'And if Crossj ay gave you his word,' the accents of a

SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP 289

new voice vibrated close by, ' be certaia that he will not
come back with Dr. Corney unless he has authority in
your handwriting.'

Clara Middleton stepped gently to Laetitia, and with a
manner that was an embrace, as much as kissed her for
what she was doiag on behaK of Crossjay. She put her
lips in a pouting form to simulate saying : ' Press it.'

' He is to come,' said Laetitia.

'Then, write him his permit.'

There was a chatter about Crossjay and the sentinel
true to his post that he could be, during which Laetitia
distressfully scribbled a line for Dr. Corney to deliver to
him. Clara stood near. She had rebuked herself for a
want of reserve in the presence of Lady Busshe and Lady
Culmer, and she was guilty of a slightly excessive contain-
ment when she next addressed Laetitia. It was, like
Laetitia's look at Dr. Middleton, opportime: enough to
make a man who watched as WiUoughby did, a fatalist
for life : the shadow of a difference in her bearing toward
Laetitia sufficed to impute acting either to her present
coolness or her previous warmth. Better stiU, when
Dr. Middleton said : ' So we leave to-morrow, my dear,
and I hope you have written to the Darletons,' Clara
flushed and beamed, and repressed her animation on a
sudden, with one grave look, that might be thought
regretful, to where Willoughby stood.

Chance works for us when we are good captains.

Willoughby's pride was high, though he knew himself
to be keeping it up like a fearfully dexterous juggler,
and for an empty reward : but he was in the toils of the
world.

'Have you written? The post-bag leaves in half an
hour,' he addressed her.

'We are expected, but I will write,' she replied: and
li^r not having yet written counted in his favour.

290 THE EGOIST

She went to write the letter. Dr. Comey had de-
parted on his mission to fetch Crossjay and medicine.
Lady Busshe was impatient to be gone. 'Corney,' she
said to Lady Culmer, 'is a deadly gossip.'

' Inveterate,' was the answer.

'My poor horses!'

'Not the young pair of bays?'

'Luckily, my dear. And don't let me hear of dining
to-night!'

Sir Willoughby was leading out Mr. Dale to a quiet
room, contiguous to the iavalid gentleman's bed-chamber.
He resigned him to Lsetitia in the hall, that he might have
the pleasure of conducting the ladies to their carriage.

'As little agitation as possible. Corney will soon be
back, ' he said, bitterly admiring the graceful subservience
of Lsetitia's figure to her father's weight on her arm.

He had won a desperate battle, but what had he won?
What had the world given him ia return for his efforts to
gain it? Just a shirt, it might be said: simple scanty
clothing, no warmth. Lady Busshe was unbearable ; she
gabbled ; she was ill-bred, permitted herself to speak of
Dr. Middleton as ineligible, no loss to the county. And
Mrs. Mountstuart was hardly much above her, with her
inevitable stroke of caricature: — 'You see Dr. Middle-
ton's pulpit scampering after him with legs!' Perhaps
the Rev. Doctor did punish the world for his having for-
saken his pulpit, and might be conceived as haunted by
it at his heels, but Willoughby was in the mood to abhor
comic images : he hated the perpetrators of them and the
grinners. Contempt of this laughing empty world, for
which he had performed a monstrous immolation, led
him to associate Dr. Middleton in his mind, and Clara too,
with the desireable things he had sacrificed — a shape of
youth and health; a sparkling companion; a face of
innumerable charms; and his own veracity; his inner

SIR WILLOUGHBY'S GENERALSHIP 291

sense of his dignity; and his temper, and the limpid
frankness of his air of scorn, that was to him a visage
of candid happiness in the dim retrospect. Haply also
he had sacrificed more ; he looked scientifically into the
future : he might have sacrificed a nameless more. And
for what ? he asked again. For the favourable looks and
tongues of these women whose looks and tongues he
detested !

' Dr. Middleton says he is indebted to me : I am deeply
in his debt,' he remarked.

' It is we who are in your debt for a lovely romance, my
dear Sir Willoughby,' said Lady Busshe, incapable of
taking a correction, so thoroughly had he imbued her
with his fiction, or with the belief that she had a good
story to circulate.

Away she drove rattling her tongue to Lady Culmer.

' A hat and horn, and she would be in the old figure of a
post-boy on a hue-and-cry sheet,' said Mrs. Mountstuart.

Willoughby thanked the great lady for her services, and
she complimented the polished gentleman on his noble
self-possession. But she complained at the same time of
being defrauded of her 'charmer' Colonel De Craye
since luncheon. An absence of warmth ia her compli-
ment caused Willoughby to shrink and think the wretched
shirt he had got from the world no covering after all:
a breath flapped it.

'He comes to me, to-morrow, I believe,' she s^id, re-
flecting on her superior knowledge of facts in comparison
with Lady Busshe, who would presently be hearing of
something novel, and exclaiming: 'So, that is why you
patronized the colonel !' And it was nothing of the sort,
for Mrs. Mountstuart could honestly say she was not the
woman to make a business of her pleasure.

' Horace is an enviable fellow,' said Willoughby, wise in
The Book, which bids us ever, for an assuagement, to

292 THE EGOIST

fancy our friend's condition worse than our own, and
recommends the deglutition of irony as the most balsamic
for wounds in the whole moral pharmacopoeia.

'I don't know,' she replied with a marked accent of
deUberation.

'The colonel is to have you to himself to-morrow !'

'I can't be sure of what I shall have in the colonel !'

'Your perpetual sparkler?'

Mrs. Mountstuart set her head in motion. She left the
matter silent.

' I '11 come for him in the morning,' she said, and her
carriage whirled her off.

Either she had guessed it, or Clara had confided to her
the treacherous passion of Horace De Craye !

However, the world was shut away from Patteme for
the night.

CHAPTER XLVII

SIR WILLOUGHBT AND HIS FRIEND HOKACB DE CBATE

WiLLOUGHBT shut himself up in his laboratory to brood
awhile after the conflict. Sounding through himself, as
it was habitual with him to do, for the plan most agreeable
to his taste, he came on a strange discovery among the
lower circles of that microcosm. He was no longer
guided in his choice by liking and appetite : he had to
put it on the edge of a sharp discrimination and try it by
his acutest judgement before it was acceptable to his
heart : and knowing well the direction of his desire, he
was nevertheless unable to run two strides on a wish.
He had learnt to read the world: his partial capacity
for reading persons had fled. The mysteries of his own
bosom were bare to him; but he could comprehend

SIR WILLOUGHBY AND HIS FRIEND 293

them only in their immediate relation to the world outr
side. This hateful world had caught him and trans-
formed him to a machine. The discovery he made was,
that in the gratification of the egoistic instinct we may so
beset ourselves as to deal a slaughtering wound upon
Self to whatsoever quarter we turn.

Surely there is nothing stranger ia mortal experience.
The man was confounded. At the game of Chess it is the
dishonour of our adversary when we are stale-mated :
but in life, combating the world, such a winning of the
game questions our sentiments.

WiUoughby's interpretation of his discovery was
directed by pity: he had no other strong emotion left
in him. He pitied himself, and he reached the conclusion
that he suffered because he was active; he could not be
quiescent. Had it not been for his devotion to his house
and name, never would he have stood twice the victim
of womankind. Had he been selfish, he would have been
the happiest of men! He said it aloud. He schemed
benevolently for his unborn young, and for the persons
about him : hence he was in a position forbidding a step
under pain of injury to his feelings. He was generous :
otherwise would he not in scorn of soul, at the outset,
straight off, have pitched Clara Middleton to the wanton
winds? He was faithful in affection: Lsetitia Dale
was beneath his roof to prove it. Both these women
were examples of his power of forgiveness, and now a
tender word to Clara might fasten shame on him — such
was her gratitude! And if he did not marry Lsetitia,
laughter would be devilish all around him — such was the
world's! Probably Vernon would not long be thankful
for the chance which varied the monotony of his days.
What of Horace ? Willoughby stripped to enter the ring
with Horace: he cast away disguise. That man had
Ijeen the first to divide him in the all but equal slices of his

294 THE EGOIST

egoistic from his amatory self: murder of his individu-
ality was the crime of Horace De Craye. And further,
suspicion fixed on Horace (he knew not how, except that
The Book bids us be suspicious of those we hate) as the
man who had betrayed his recent dealings with Lsetitia.

Willoughby walked the thoroughfares of the house to
meet Clara and make certain of her either for himself or,
if it must be, for Vernon, before he took another step with
Lsetitia Dale. Clara could reunite him, turn him once
more iuto a whole and an animated man ; and she might
be willing. Her willingness to listen to Vernon promised
it. 'A gentleman with a tongue would have a chance,'
Mrs. Mountstuart had said. How much greater the
chance of a lover ! For he had not yet supplicated her :
he had shown pride and temper. He could woo, he was
a torrential wooer. And it would be glorious to swing
round on Lady Busshe and the world, with Clara nestling
under an arm, and protest astonishment at the erroneous
and utterly unfounded anticipations of any other de-
velopment. And it would righteously punish Lsetitia.

Clara came downstairs, bearing her letter to Miss
Darleton.

'Must it be posted?' Willoughby said, meeting her in
the hall.

'They expect us any day, but it will be more comfort-
able for papa,' was her answer. She looked kindly in her
new shyness.

She did not seem to think he had treated her contempt-
uously in flinging her to his cousin, which was odd.

'You have seen Vernon?'

'It was your wish.'

'You had a talk?'

'We conversed.'

'A long one?'

'We walked some distance.'

SIR WILLOUGHBY AND HIS FRIEND 295

'Clara, I tried to make the best arrangement I could.'

'Your intention was generous.'

'He took no advantage of it?'

'It could not be treated seriously.'

'It was meant seriously.'

'There I see the generosity.'

Willoughby thought this encomium, and her consent
to speak on the subject, and her scarcely embarrassed
air and richness of tone in speaking, very strange: and
strange was her taking him quite in earnest. Apparently
she had no feminine sensation of the imwontedness and
the absurdity of the matter !

'But, Clara ! am I to understand that he did not speak
out?'

'We are excellent friends.'

'To miss it, though his chance were the smallest !'

'You forget that it may not wear that appearance to
him.'

'He spoke not one word of himself?'

'No.'

'Ah! the poor old fellow was taught to see it was
hopeless — chilled. May I plead? WiU you step into
the laboratory for a minute? We are two sensible
persons . . .'

'Pardon me, I must go to papa.'

'Vernon's personal history perhaps . . .?'

'I think it honourable to him.'

'Honourable ! — 'hem !'

'By comparison.'

'Comparison with what?'

'With others.'

He drew up to relieve himself of a critical and condem-
natory expiration of a certain length. This young lady
knew too much. But how physically exquisite she was !

'Could you, Clara, could you promise me — I hold to it.

296 THE EGOIST

I must have it, I know his shy tricks — ^promise me to
give him ultimately another chance? Is the idea repul-
sive to you?'

'It is one not to be thought of.'

'It is not repulsive?'

' Nothing could be repulsive in Mr. Whitf ord.'

'I have no wish to annoy you, Clara.'

'I feel bound to listen to you, Willoughby. Whatever
I can do to please you, I will. It is my life-long duty.'

'Could you, Clara, could you conceive it, could you
simply conceive it ; — ^give him your hand ? '

'As a friend, Oh ! yes.'

'In marriage.'

She paused. She, so penetrative of him when he op-
posed her, was hoodwinked when he softened her feelings :
for the heart, — ^though the clearest, is not the most con-
stant instructor of the head ; the heart, unlike the often
obtuser head, works for itself and not for the common-
wealth.

'You are so kind ... I would do much . . .' she
said.

'Would you accept him — marry him? He is poor.'

'I am not ambitious of wealth.'

'Would you marry him?'

'Marriage is not in my thoughts.'

'But could you marry him?'

Willoughby expected no. In his expectation of it he
hung inflated.

She said these words : ' I could engage to marry no one
else.'

His amazement breathed without a syllable.

He flapped his arms, resembling for the moment those
birds of enormous body which attempt a rise upon their
wings and achieve a hop.

'Would you engage it?' he said, content to see himself

SIR WILLOUGHBY AND HIS FRIEND 297

stepped on as an insect if he could but feel the agony of
his false friend Horace — their common pretensions to win
her were now of that comparative size.

'Oh! there can be no necessity. And an oath — ^no!'
said Clara, inwardly shivering at a recollection.

'But you could?'

'My wish is to please you.'

'You could?'

'I said so.'

It has been known of the patriotic mountaineer of a
hoary pile of winters, with little life remaining in him,
but that little on fire for his country, that by the brink
of the precipice he has flung himself on a young and lusty
invader, dedicating himself exultingly to death if only he
may score a point for his country by extinguishing in his
country's enemy the stronger man. So likewise did
WiUoughby, in the blow that deprived him of hope, exult
in the toppling over of Horace De Craye. They perished
together, but which one sublimely relished the headlong
descent? And Vernon taken by Clara would be Vernon
simply tolerated. And Clara taken by Vernon would
be Clara previously touched, smirched. Altogether he
could enjoy his fall.

It was at least upon a comfortable bed, where his pride
would be dressed daily and would never be disagreeably
treated.

He was henceforth Lsetitia's own. The bell telling of
Dr. Corney's return was a welcome sound to Willoughby,
and he said good-humouredly : 'Wait, Clara, you will
see your hero Crossjay.'

Crossjay and Dr. Corney tumbled into the hall. Wil-
loughby caught Crossjay under the arms to give him a
lift in the old fashion pleasing to Clara to see. The boy
was heavy as lead.

'I had work to hook him and worse to net him,' said

298 THE EGOIST

Dr. Comey. 'I had to make him believe he was to nurse
every soul in the house, you among them, Miss Middleton.'

Willoughby pulled the boy aside.

Crossjay came back to Clara heavier in looks than his
limbs had been. She dropped her letter in the hall-box,
and took his hand to have a private hug of him. When
they were alone, she said: 'Crossjay, my dear, my
dear ! You look unhappy.'

'Yes, and who wouldn't be, and you're not to marry
Sir Willoughby!' his voice threatened a cry. 'I know
you 're not, for Dr. Corney says you are going to leave.'

'Did you so very much wish it, Crossjay?'

'I should have seen a lot of you, and I shan't see you at

all, and I 'm sure if I 'd known I wouldn't have , and

he has been and tipped me this.'

Crossjay opened his fist in which lay three gold pieces.

'That was very kind of him,' said Clara.

'Yes, but how can I keep it?'

'By handing it to Mr. Whitford to keep for you.'

'Yes, but, Miss Middleton, oughtn't I to tell him? I
mean Sir Willoughby.'

'What?'

'Why, that I,' Crossjay got close to her, 'why, that I,
that I — you know what you used to say. I wouldn't tell
a lie, but oughtn't I, without his asking . . , and this
money ! I don't mind being turned out again.'

'Consult Mr. Whitford,' said Clara.

'I know what you think, though.'

'Perhaps you had better not say anything at present,
dear boy.'

'But what am I to do with this money?'

Crossjay held the gold pieces out as things that had not
yet mingled with his ideas of possession.

'I listened, and I told of him,' he said. 'I couldn't
help listening, but I went and told ; and I don't like being

SIR WILLOUGHBY AND HIS FRIEND 299

here, and his money, and he not knowing what I did.
Haven't you heard ? I 'm certain I know what you
think, and so do I, and I must take my luck, I 'm always
in mischief, getting into a mess or getting out of it. I
don't mind, I really don't. Miss Middleton, I can sleep in
a tree quite comfortably. If you 're not going to be
here, I 'd just as soon be anywhere. I must try to earn
my living some day. And why not a cabin-boy? Sir
Cloudesley Shovel was no better. And I don't mind his
being wrecked at last, if you 're drowned an admiral.
So I shall go and ask him to take his money back, and if
he asks me I shall tell him, and there. You know what
it is : I guessed that from what Dr. Corney said. I 'm
sure I know you 're thinking what 's manly. Fancy me
keeping his money, and you not marrying him ! I
wouldn't mind driving a plough. I shouldn't make a
bad gamekeeper. Of course I love boats best, but you
can't have everything.'

'Speak to Mr. Whitford first,' said Qara, too proud
of the boy for growing as she had trained him, to advise
a course of conduct opposed to his notions of manliness,
though now that her battle was over she would gladly
have acquiesced in little casuistic compromises for the
sake of the general peace.

Some time later Vernon and Dr. Comey were arguing
upon the question. Comey was dead against the senti-
mental view of the morality of the case propounded by
Vernon as conmig from Miss Middleton and partly shared
by him. 'If it's on the boy's mind,' Vernon said, 'I
can't prohibit his going to Willoughby and making a clean
breast of it, especially as it involves me, and sooner or
later I should have to teU him myself.'

Dr. Corney said no at all points. 'Now hear me,' he
said finally. 'This is between ourselves, and no breach
of confidence, which I 'd not be guUty of for forty friends,

300 THE EGOIST

though I 'd give my hand from the wrist-joint for one —
my' left, that 's to say. Sir WUloughby puts me one or
two searching interrogations on a point of interest to him,
his house and name. Very well, and good-night to that,
and I wish Miss Dale had been ten years younger, or had
passed the ten with no heartrisings and sinkings wearing
to the tissues of the frame and the moral fibre to boot.
She '11 have a fairish health, with a little occasional
doctoring; taking her rank and wealth in right earnest,
and shying her pen back to Mother Goose. She '11 do.
And, by the way, I think it 's to the credit of my sagacity
that I fetched Mr. Dale here fully primed, and roused the
neighbourhood, which I did, and so fixed our gentleman,
neat as a prodded eel on a pair of prongs — namely, the
positive fact and the general knowledge of it. But mark
me, my friend. We understand one another at a nod.
This boy, young Squire Crossjay, is a good stiff hearty
kind of a Saxon boy, out of whom you may cut as gallant
a fellow as ever wore epaulettes. I like him, you like
him, Miss Dale and Miss Middleton like him; and Sir
Willoughby Patterne of Patterne Hall and other places
won't be indisposed to like him mightily in the event of
the sun being seen to shine upon him with a particular
determination to make him appear a prominent object,
because a solitary, and a Patterne.' Dr. Corney lifted
his chest and his finger: 'Now, mark me, and verbum
sap : Crossjay must not offend Sir Wnioughby. I say
no more. Look ahead. Miracles happen, but it 's best
to reckon that they won't. Well, now, and Miss Dale.
She '11 not be cruel.'

'It appears as if she would,' said Vernon, meditating
on the cloudy sketch Dr. Corney had drawn.

' She can't, my friend. Her position 's precarious ;
her father has little besides a pension. And her writing
damages her health. She can't. And she likes the

SIR WILLOUGHBY AND HIS FRIEND 301

baronet. Oh, it 's only a little fit of proud blood. She 's
the woman for him. She '11 manage him — give him an
idea that he has got a lot of ideas. It 'd kill her father
if she was obstinate. He talked to me, when I told him
of the business, about his dream fulfilled, and if the
dream turns to vapour, he '11 be another example that
we hang more upon dreams than realities for nourish-
ment, and medicine too. Last week I couldn't have
got him out of his house with all my art and science. Oh,
she '11 come round. Her father prophesied this, and I '11
prophesy that. She 's fond of him.'

'She was.'

'She sees through him?'

'Without quite doing justice to him now,' said Vernon.
'He can be generous — in his way.'

'How?' Corney inquired, and was informed that he
should hear in time to come.

Meanwhile Colonel De Craye, after hovering over the
park and about the cottage for the opportunity of pounc-
ing on Miss Middleton alone, had returned, crest-fallen
for once, and plumped into WiUoughby's hands.

' My dear Horace,' WUloughby said, ' I 've been looking
for you all the afternoon. The fact is — I fancy you '11
think yourself lured down here on false pretences : but
the truth is, I am not so much to blame as the world will
suppose. In point of fact, to be brief. Miss Dale and I
... I never consult other men how they would have
acted. The fact of the matter is, Miss Middleton . . .
I fancy you have partly guessed it.'

'Partly,' said De Craye.

'Well, she has a liking that way, and if it should turn
out strong enough, it 's the best arrangement I can
think of.'

The lively play of the colonel's features fixed in a blank
inquiry.

302 THE EGOIST

'One can back a good friend for making a good hus-
band,' said Willoughby. 'I could not break with her in
the present stage of affairs without seeing to that. And
I can speak of her highly, though she and I have seen in
time that we do not suit one another. My wife must have
brains.'

'I have always thought it,' said Colonel De Craye,
glistening and looking hungry as a wolf through his
wonderment.

'There will not be a word against her, you understand.
You know my dislike of tattle and gossip. However,
let it fall on me ; my shoulders are broad. I have done
my utmost to persuade her, and there seems a likelihood
of her consenting. She tells me her wish is to please me,
and this will please me.'

' Certainly. Who 's the gentleman ? '

'My best friend, I tell you. I could hardly have pro-
posed another. Allow this business to go on smoothly
just now.'

There was an uproar within the colonel to blind his
wits, and Willoughby looked so friendly that it was
possible to suppose the man of projects had mentioned his.
best friend to Miss Middleton.

And who was the best friend?

Not having accused himself of treachery, the quick-
eyed colonel was duped.

'Have you his name handy, Willoughby?'

'That would be imfair to him at present, Horace — ask.
yourself — and to her. Things are in a ticklish posture
at present. Don't be hasty.'

' Certainly. I don't ask. Initials '11 do.'

' You have a remarkable aptitude for guessing, Horace,
and this case offers you no tough problem — if ever you
acknowledge toughness. I have a regard for her and for
him — ^for both pretty equally; you know I have, and

SIR WILLOUGHBY AND HIS FRIEND 303

I should be thoroughly thankful to bring the matter
about.'

'Lordly!' said De Craye.

' I don't see it. I call it sensible.'

'Oh! undoubtedly. The style, I mean. Tolerably
antique ? '

'Novel, I should say, and not the worse for that. We
want plain practical dealings between men and women.
Usually we go the wrong way to work. And I loathe
sentimental rubbish.'

De Craye hummed an air. 'But the lady?' said he.

' I told you, there seems a likelihood of her consenting.*^

Willoughby's fish gave a perceptible little leap now
that he had been taught' to exercise his aptitude for
guessing.

'Without any of the customary preliminaries on the
side of the gentleman?' he said.

'We must put him through his paces, friend Horace^
He 's a notorious blunderer with women ; hasn't a word
for them, never marked a conquest.'

De Craye crested his plumes under the agreeable banter-
He presented a face humourously sceptical.

"The lady is positively not indisposed to give the poor
fellow a hearing?'

'I have cause to think she is not,' said Willoughby,
glad of acting the indifference to her which could talk of
her inclinations.

'Cause?'

'Good cause.'

'Bless us!'

'As good as one can havt with a woman.'

'Ah?'

'I assure you.'

' Ah ! Does it seem like her, though ? '

' Well, she wouldn't engage herself to accept him.*

304 THE EGOIST

'Well, that seems more like her.'

'But she said she could engage to marry no one else.'

The colonel sprang up, crying: 'Clara Middleton said
it? He curbed himself. 'That's a bit of wonderful
compliancy.'

' She wishes to please me. We separate on those terms.
And I wish her happiness. I 've developed a heart lately
and taken to think of others.'

'Nothing better. You appear to make cock sure of
the other party — our friend?'

'You know him too well, Horace, to doubt his readi-
ness.'

'Do you, Willoughby?'

'She has money and good looks. Yes, I can say I do.'

'It wouldn't be much of a man who'd want hard
pulling to that lighted altar ! '

'And if he requires persuasion, you and I, Horace,
might bring him to his senses.'

' Kicking, 'twould be ! '

'I like to see everybody happy about me,' said Wil-
loughby, naming the hour as time to dress for dinner.

The sentiment he had delivered was De Craye's excuse
for grasping his hand and complimenting him; but the
colonel betrayed himself by doing it with an extreme
fervour almost tremulous.

' When shall we hear more ?' he said.

'Oh, probably to-morrow,' said Willoughby. 'Don't
be in such a hurry.'

'I 'm an infant asleep!' the colonel replied, departing.

He resembled one, to Willoughby's mind : or a traitor
drugged.

' There is a fellow I thought had some brains ! '

Who are not fools to be set spinning if we choose to
whip them with their vanity ! It is the consolation of the
great to watch them spin. But the pleasure is loftier.

THE LOVERS 305

and may comfort our mimerited misfortune for a while,
in making a false friend drunk.

Willoughby, among his many preoccupations, had the
satisfaction of seeing the effect of drunkenness on Horace
De Craye when the latter was in Clara's presence. He
could have laughed. Cut in keen epigram were the mar-
ginal notes added by him to that chapter of The Book
which treats of friends and a woman: and had he not
been profoundly preoccupied, troubled by recent intelli-
gence communicated by the ladies, his aunts, he would
have played the two together for the royal amusement
afforded him by his friend Horace.

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE LOVEBS

The hour was close upon eleven at night. Laetitia sat in
the room adjoining her father's bed-chamber. Her elbow
was on the table beside her chair, and two fingers pressed
her temples. The state between thinking and feeling,
when both are molten and flow by us, is one of our nature's
intermissions, coming after thought has quieted the fiery
nerves, and can do no more. She seemed to be meditat-
ing. She was conscious only of a struggle past.

She answered a tap at the door, and raised her eyes on
Clara.

Clara stepped softly. ' Mr. Dale is asleep ?'

'I hope so.'

'Ah! dear friend.'

Lsetitia let her hand be pressed.

'Have you had a pleasant evening?'

'Mr. Whitford and papa have gone to the library.'

306 THE EGOIST

'Colonel De Craye has been singing?'

'Yes — ^with a voice! I thought of you upstairs, but
could not ask him to sing piano.'

' He is probably exhilarated.'

' One would suppose it : he sang well.'

'You are not aware of any reason?'

'It cannot concern me.'

Clara was in rosy colour, but could meet a steady gaze.

'And Cross] ay has gone to bed?'

' Long since. He was at dessert. He would not touch
anything.'

'He is a strange boy.'

'Not very strange, Lsetitia.'

' He did not come to me to wish me good night.'

'That is not strange.'

'It is his habit at the cottage and here; and he pro-
fesses to like me.'

'Oh! he does. I may have wakened his enthusiasm,
but you he loves.'

'Why do you say it is not strange, Clara?'

'He fears you a little.'

'And why should Cross jay fear me?'

'Dear, I will tell you. Last night — ^You will forgive
him, for it was by accident : his own bed-room door was
locked and he ran down to the drawing-room and curled
himself up on the ottoman, and fell asleep, under that
padded silken coverlet of the ladies — boots and all, I am
afraid ! '

Lsetitia profited by this absurd allusion, thanking Clara
in her heart for the refuge.

' He should have taken off his boots,' she said.

'He slept there, and woke up. Dear, he meant no
harm. Next day he repeated what he had heard. You
will blame him. He meant well in his poor boy's head.
And now it is over the county. Ah ! do not frown.'

THE LOVERS 307

'That explains Lady Busshe!' exclaimed Lsetitia.

'Dear, dear friend,' said Clara. 'Why — I presume on
your tenderness for me ; but let me : to-morrow I go —
why will you reject your happiness? Those kind good
ladies are deeply troubled. They say your resolution
is inflexible ; you resist their entreaties and your father's.
Can it be that you have any doubt of the strength of this
attachment? I have none. I have never had a doubt
that it was the strongest of his feelings. If before I go
I could see you . . . both happy, I should be relieved,
I should rejoice.'

Lsetitia said quietly : 'Do you remember a walk we had
one day together to the cottage?'

Clara put up her hands with the motion of intending to
stop her ears.

'Before I go !' said she. 'If I might know this was to
be, which all desire, before I leave, I should not feel as
I do now. I long to see you happy . . . him, yes, him
too. Is it like asking you to pay my debt ? Then, please !
But, no ; I am not more than partly selfish on this occasion.
He has won my gratitude. He can be reaUy generous.'

•An Egoist?'

'Who is?'

'You have forgotten our conversation on the day of
our walk to the cottage.'

'Help me to forget it — that day, and those days, and
all those days ! I should be glad to think I passed a time
beneath the earth, and have risen again. I was the
Egoist. I am sure, if I had been buried, I should not have
stood up seeing myself more vilely stained, soiled, dis-
figured — oh! Help me to forget my conduct, Lsetitia.
He and I were unsuited — and I remember I blamed my-
self then. You and he are not : and now I can perceive
the pride that can be felt in him. The worst that can be
€aid is, that he schemes too much.'

308 THE EGOIST

'Is there any fresh scheme?' said Lsetitia.

The rose came over Clara's face.

'You have not heard? It was impossible, but it was
kindly intended. Judging by my own feeling at this
moment, I can understand his. We love to see our
friends established.'

Lsetitia bowed. 'My curiosity is piqued, of course.'

'Dear friend, to-morrow we shall be parted. I trust
to be thought of by you as a little better in grain than I
have appeared, and my reason for trusting it is, that I
know I have been always honest — a boorish young woman
in my stupid mad impatience ; but not insincere. It is no
lofty ambition to desire to be remembered in that char-
acter, but such is your Clara, she discovers. I will tell
you. It is his wish ... his wish that I should promise
to give my hand to Mr. Whitford. You see the kindness.'

Lsetitia's eyes widened and fixed :

'You think it kindness?'

'The intention. He sent Mr. Whitford to me, and I
was taught to expect him.'

'Was that quite kind to Mr. Whitford?'

'What an impression I must have made on you during
that walk to the cottage, Lsetitia ! I do not wonder ; I
was in a fever.'

'You consented to listen?'

'I really did. It astonishes me now, but I thought
I could not refuse.'

'My poor friend Vernon Whitford tried a love speech.'

'He? no: Oh! no.'

'You discouraged him?'

'I? no.'

'Gently, I mean.'

'No.'

'Surely you did not dream of trifling? He has a deep
heart.'

THE LOVERS 309

•Has he?'

' You ask that : and you know something of him.'

'He did not expose it to me, dear; not even the sur-
face of the mighty deep.'

Lsetitia knitted her brows.

'No,' said Clara, 'not a coquette : she is not a coquette,
I assure you.'

With a laugh, Lsetitia replied: 'You have still the
"dreadful power" you made me feel that day.'

'I wish I could use it to good purpose !'

'He did not speak?'

' Of Switzerland, Tyrol, the Iliad, Antigone.'

'That was all?'

' No, Political Economy. Our situation, you will own,
was unexampled : or mine was. Are you interested in me ? '

'I should be, if I knew your sentiments.'

'I was grateful to Sir Willoughby: grieved for Mr.
Whitford.'

'Real grief?'

'Because the task imposed on him of showing me
politely that he did not enter into his cousin's ideas, was
evidently very great, extremely burdensome.'

'You, so quick-eyed in some things, Clara !'

'He felt for me. I saw that, in his avoidance of . . .
And he was, as he always is, pleasant. We rambled over
the park for I know not how long, though it did not seem
long.'

'Never touching that subject?'

'Not ever neighbouring it, dear. A gentleman should
esteem the girl he would ask . . . certain questions. I
fancy he has a liking for me as a volatile friend.'

'If he had offered himself?'

'Despising me?'

'You can be childish, Clara. Probably you delight to
•tease. He had his time of it, and it is now my turn.'

310 THE EGOIST

'But he must despise me a little.'

'Are you blind?'

'Perhaps, dear, we both are, a little.'

The ladies looked deeper into one another.

'Will you answer me?' said Lsetitia.

'Your if? If he had, it would have been an act of con-
descension.'

'You are too slippery.'

'Stay, dear Lsetitia. He was considerate in forbearing
to pain me.'

'That is an answer. You allowed him to perceive
that it would have pained you.'

'Dearest, if I may convey to you what I was, ia a
simile for comparison: I think I was like a fisherman's
float on the water, perfectly still, and ready to go down
at any instant, or up. So much for my behaviour.'

' Similes have the merit of satisfsdng the finder of them,
and cheating the hearer,' said Lsetitia. 'You admit that
your feelings would have been painful.'

'I was a fisherman's float: please, admire my simile:
any way you like, this way or that, or so quiet as to tempt
the eyes to go to sleep. And suddenly I might have dis-
appeared in the depths, or flown in the air. But no fish
bit.'

'Well, then, to follow you, supposing the fish or the
fisherman, for I don't know which is which . . . Oh ! no,
no : this is too serious for imagery. I am to understand
that you thanked him at least for his reserve.'

'Yes.'

'Without the slightest encouragement to him to break
it?'

'A fisherman's float, Lsetitia!'

Baffled and sighing, Lsetitia kept silence for a space.

The simile chafed her wits with a suspicion of a meaning
hidden in it.

THE LOVERS 311

'If he had spoken?' she said.

'He is too truthful a man.'

'And the railings of men at pussy women who wind
about and will not be brought to a mark, become intelli-
gible to me.'

'Then, Laetitia, if he had spoken, if, and one could have
imagined him sincere . . .'

'So truthful a man?'

'I am looking at myself. If! — why, then, I should
have burnt to death with shame. Where have I read ? —
some story — of an inextinguishable spark. That would
have been shot into my heart.'

'Shame, Clara? You are free.'

'As much as remains of me.'

'I could imagine a certain shame, in such a position,
where there was no feeling but pride.'

'I coidd not imagine it where there was no feeling but
pride.'

Laetitia mused: 'And you dwell on the kindness of a
proposition so extraordinary!' Gaining some light, im-
patiently she cried : ' Vernon loves you.'

'Do not say it !'

'I have seen it.'

' I have never had a sign of it.'

'There is the proof.'

'When it might have been shown again and again !'

'The greater proof !'

'Why did he not speak when he was privileged? —
strangely, but privileged.'

'He feared.'

'Me?'

'Feared to wound you — and himseK as well, possibly.
Men may be pardoned for thinking of themselves in these
cases.'
. 'But why should he fear?'

312 THE EGOIST

'That another was dearer to you?'

'What cause had I given ... Ah! see! He could
fear that ; suspect it ! See his opinion of me ! Can he
care for such a girl? Abuse me, Lsetitia. I should like
a good round of abuse. I need purification by fire.
What have I been in this house? I have a sense of
whirling through it like a madwoman. And to be loved,
after it all — No ! we must be hearing a tale of an anti-
quary prizing a battered relic of the battle-field that no
one else would look at. To be loved, I see, is to feel our
littleness, hoUowness — ^feel shame. We come out in all
our spots. Never to have given me one sign, when a lover
would have been so tempted ! Let me be incredulous,
my own dear Lsetitia. Because he is a man of honour,
you would say ! But are you unconscious of the torture
you inflict? For if I am — you say it — cloved by this
gentleman, what an object it is he loves ! — that has gone
clamouring about more immodestly than women will bear
to hear of, and she herself to think of ! Oh ! I have seen
my own heart. It is a frightful spectre. I have seen
a weakness in me that would have carried me anywhere.
And truly I shall be charitable to women — ^I have gained
that. But, loved ! by Vernon Whitford ! The miserable
little me to be taken up and loved after tearing myself
to pieces! Have you been simply speculating? You
have no positive knowledge of it ! Why do you kiss me?'

'Why do you tremble and blush so?'

Clara looked at her as clearly as she could. She bowed
her head. 'It makes my conduct worse !'

She received a tenderer kiss for that. It was her
avowal and it was understood: to know that she had
loved, or had been ready to love him, shadowed her in
the retrospect.

'Ah! you read me through and through,' said Clara,
sliding to her for a whole embrace.

THE LOVERS 313

'Then there never was cause for him to fear?' Laetitia
whispered.

Clara slid her head more out of sight. 'Not that my
heart . . . But I said I have seen it ; and it is unworthy
of him. And if, as I think now, I could have been so rash,
so weak, wicked, unpardonable — ^such thoughts were in me !
— then to hear him speak, would make it necessary for
me to uncover myself and tell him — incredible to you,
yes ! — ^that while . . . yes, Laetitia, all this is true : and
thinking of him as the noblest of men, I could have
welcomed any help to cut my knot. So there,' said Clara,
issuing from her nest with winking eyelids, 'you see the
pain I mentioned.'

' Why did you not explain it to me at once ? '

'Dearest, I wanted a century to pass.'

'And you feel that it has passed?'

' Yes ; in Purgatory — with an angel by me. My report
of the place will be favourable. Good angel, I have yet
to say something.'

'Say it, and expiate.'

' I think I did fancy once or twice, very dimly, and es-
pecially to-day . . . properly I ought not to have had
any idea: but his coming to me, and his not doing as
another would have done, seemed ... A gentleman of
real nobleness does not carry the common hght for us to
read him by. I wanted his voice; but silence, I think,
did tell me more : if a nature like mine could only have
had faith without hearing the rattle of a tongue.'

A knock at the door caused the ladies to exchange
looks.

Laetitia rose as Vernon entered.

'I am just going to my father for a few minutes,' she
said.

'And I have just come from yours,' Vernon said to
Clara.

314 THE EGOIST

She observed a very threatening expression in him.

The sprite of contrariety mounted to her brain to in-
demnify her for her recent self-abasement. Seeing the
bed-room door shut on Lsetitia, she said: 'And of course
papa has gone to bed' : implying 'otherwise . . .'

' Yes, he has gone. He wished me well.'

'His formula of good-night would embrace that wish.'

'And failing, it will be good-night for good to me !'

Clara's breathing gave a little leap. 'We leave early
to-morrow.'

'I know. I have an appointment at Bregenz for
June.'

'So soon? With papa?'

'And from there we break into Tjrol, and round away
to the right. Southward.'

'To the Italian Alpsl And was it assuflied that I
should be of this expedition?'

'Your father speaks dubiously.'

'You have spoken of me, then?'

'I ventured to speak of you. I am not over-bold, as
you know.'

Her lovely eyes troubled the lids to hide their softness.

'Papa should not think of my presence with him
dubiously.'

' He leaves it to you to decide.'

' Yes, then : many times : all that can be uttered.'

'Do you consider what you are saying?'

' Mr. Whitf ord, I shut my eyes and say Yes.'

'Beware. I give you one warning. If you shut your
eyes . . .'

'Of course,' she flew from him, 'big mountains must be
satisfied with my admiration at their feet.'

'That will do for a beginning.'

'They speak encouragingly.'

' One of them.' Vernon's breast heaved high.

THE LOVERS 315

'To be at your feet makes a mountain of you?' said
she.

'With the heart of a mouse if that satisfies me I'

' You tower too high ; you are inaccessible.'

'I give you a second warning. You may be seized and
lifted.'

'Some one would stoop, then.'

'To plant you like the flag on the conquered peak!'

' You have indeed been talking to papa, Mr. Whitford.'

Vernon changed his tone.

'Shall I tell you what he said?'

'I know his language so well.'

'He said '

' But you have acted on it.'

'Only partly. He said '

'You will teach me nothing.'

'He said . . .'

' Vernon, no ! oh ! not in this house ! '

That supplication coupled with his name confessed the
end to which her quick vision perceived she was being
led, where she would succumb.

She revived the same shrinking in him from a breath of
their great word yet : not here ; somewhere in the shadow
of the mountains.

But he was sure of her. And their hands might join.
The two hands thought so, or did not think, behaved like
innocents.

The spirit of Dr. Middleton, as Clara felt, had been
blown into Vernon, rewarding him for forthright out-
speaking. Over their books, Vernon had abruptly shut
up a volume and related the tale of the house. ' Has this
man a spice of religion in him?' the Rev. Doctor asked
midway. Vernon made out a fair general case for his
cousin in that respect. 'The complemental dot on his i
^ of a commonly civilized human creature!' said Dr.

316 THE EGOIST

Middleton, looking at his watch and finding it too late to
leave the house before morning. The risky communi-
cation was to come. Vernon was proceeding with the
narrative of WUloughby's generous plan when Dr. Middle-
ton electrified him by calling out : ' He whom of all men
living I should desire my daughter to espouse!' and
Willoughby rose in the Rev. Doctor's esteem : he praised
that sensibly minded gentleman, who could acquiesce in
the turn of mood of a little maid, albeit Fortune had
withheld from him a taste of the switch at school. The
father of the little maid's appreciation of her volatility
was exhibited in his exhoration to Vernon to be off to
her at once with his authority to finish her moods and
assure him of peace ia the morning. Vernon hesitated.
Dr. Middleton remarked upon being not so sure that it
was not he who had done the mischief. Thereupon
Vernon, to prove his honesty, made his own story bare.
'Go to her,' said Dr. Middleton. Vernon proposed a
meeting in Switzerland, to which Dr. Middleton assented,
adding : 'Go to her' : and as he appeared a total stranger
to the decorum of the situation, Vernon put his delicacy
aside, and taking his heart up, obeyed. He too had
pondered on Clara's consent to meet him after she knew
of Willoughby's terms, and her grave sweet manner
during the ramble over the park. Her father's breath
had been blown into him ; so now, with nothing but the
faith lying in sensation to convince him of his happy
fortune (and how unconvincing that may be until the
mind has grasped and stamped it, we experience even
then when we acknowledge that we are most blest), he
held her hand. And if it was hard for him, for both, but
harder for the man, to restrain their particular word from
a flight to heaven when the cage stood open and nature
beckoned, he was practised in self-mastery, and she loved
him the more.

LiETITIA AND SIR WILLOUGHBY 317

Lsetitia was a witness of their union of liands on her
coming back to the room.

They promised to visit her very early in the morning,
neither of them conceiving that they left her to a night
of storm and tears.

She sat meditating on Clara's present appreciation of
Sir Willoughby's generosity.

CHAPTER XLIX

LiBTITIA AND SIR ViLLOUGHBT

We cannot be abettors of the tribes of imps whose revelry
is in the frailties of our poor human constitution. They
have their place and their service, and so long as we con-
tinue to be what we are now, they will hang on to us, rest-
lessly plucking at the garments which cover our naked-
ness, nor ever ceasing to twitch them and strain at them
until they have fairly stripped us for one of their horrible
Walpurgis nights : when the laughter heard is of a char-
acter to render laughter frightful to the ears of men
throughout the remainder of their days. But if in these
festival hours under the beams of Hecate they are un-
controllable by the Comic Muse, she will not flatter them
with her presence during the course of their insane and
impious hilarities, whereof a description would out-
Brocken Brockens and make Graymalkin and Paddock
too intimately our familiars.

It shall suffice to say that from hour to hour of the mid-
night to the grey-eyed morn, assisted at intervals by the
ladies Eleanor and Isabel, and by Mr. Dale awakened and
reawakened — ^hearing the vehemence of his petitioning
outcry to soften her obduracy — Sir Willoughby pursued

318 THE EGOIST

Lsetitia with solicitations to espouse him, until the in-
veteracy of his wooing wore the aspect of the life-long love
he raved of aroused to a state of mania. He appeared,
he departed, he returned; and all the while his imps
were about him and upon him, riding him, prompting,
driving, inspiring him with outrageous pathos, an elo-
quence to move any one but the dead, which its object
seemed to be in her torpid attention. He heard them,
he talked to them, caressed them ; he flung them off and
ran from them, and stood vanquished for them to mount
him again and swarm on him. There are men thus imp-
haunted. Men who, setting their minds upon an object,
must have it, breed imps. They are noted for their
singularities, as their converse with the invisible and
amazing distractions are called. Willoughby became
aware of them that night. He said to himself, upon one
of his dashes into solitude : I believe I am possessed !
And if he did not actually believe it, but only suspected
it, or framed speech to account for the transformation he
had undergone into a desperately beseeching creature,
having lost acquaintance with his habitual personality,
the operations of an impish host had undoubtedly smitten
his consciousness.

He had them in his brain : for while burning with an
ardour for Lsetitia, that incited him to frantic excesses of
language and comportment, he was aware of shouts of
the names of Lady Busshe and Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkin-
son, the which, freezing him as they did, were directly
the cause of his hurr3dng to a wilder extravagance and
more headlong determination to subdue before break of
day the woman he almost- dreaded to behold by daylight,
though he had now passionately persuaded himself of
his love of her. He could not, he felt, stand in the
daylight without her. She was his morning. She was,
he raved, his predestinated wife. He cried: 'Darling!'

L^TITIA AND SIR WILLOUGHBY 319

both to her and to solitude. Every prescription of his
ideal of demeanour as an example to his class and country,
was abandoned by the enamoured gentleman. He had
lost command of his coimtenance. He stooped so far as
to kneel, and not gracefully. Nay, it is in the chronicles
of the invisible host around him, that in a fit of suppli-
cation, upon a cry of 'Lsetitia!' twice repeated, he
whimpered.

Let so much suflSice. And indeed not without reason
do the multitudes of the servants of the Muse in this land
of social policy avoid scenes of an inordinate wantonness,
which detract from the dignity of our leaders and menace
human nature with confusion. Sagacious are they who
conduct the individual on broad lines, over familiar
tracks, under well-known characteristics. What men
will do, and amorously minded men will do, is less the
question than what it is politic that they should be shown
to do.

The night wore through. Lsetitia was bent, but had
not yielded. She had been obliged to say — and how
many times, she could not bear to recollect : ' I do not
love you; I have no love to give' ; and issuing from such
a night to look again upon the face of day, she scarcely
felt that she was alive.

The contest was renewed by her father with the singing
of the birds. Mr. Dale then produced the first serious
impression she had received. He spoke of their circum-
stances, of his being taken from her and leaving her to
poverty, in weak health ; of the injury done to her health
by writing for bread; and of the oppressive weight he
would be relieved of by her Qonsenting. He no longer
implored her ; he put the case on common groimd.

And he woimd up: 'Pray do not be ruthless, my
girl.'

The practical statement, and this adjuration in-

320 THE EGOIST

congruously to conclude it, harmonized with her dis-
ordered understanding, her loss of all sentiment and her
desire to be kind. She sighed to herself: 'Happily, it
is over!'

Her father was too weak to rise. He fell asleep. She
was bound down to the house for hours ; and she walked
through her suite, here at the doors, there at the windows,
thinking of Clara's remark 'of a century passing.' She
had not wished it, but a light had come on her to show
her what she would have supposed a century could not
have effected : she saw the impossible of overnight a
possible thing : not desireable, yet possible, wearing the
features of the possible. Happily, she had resisted too
firmly to be again besought.

Those features of the possible once beheld allured the
mind to reconsider them. Wealth gives us the power
to do good on earth. Wealth enables us to see the world,
the beautiful scenes of the earth. Lsetitia had long
thirsted both for a dowering money-bag at her girdle,
and the wings to fly abroad over lands which had begun
to seem fabulous in her starved imagination. Then,
moreover, if her sentiment for this gentleman was gone,
it was only a delusion gone; accurate sight and knowl-
edge of him would not make a woman the less helpful
mate. That was the mate he required: and he could
be led. A sentimental attachment would have been
serviceless to him. Not so the woman allied by a
purely rational bond : and he wanted guiding. Happily,
she had told him too much of her feeble health and
her lovelessness to be reduced to submit to another
attack.

She busied herself in her room, arranging for her depar-
ture, so that no minutes might be lost after her father
had breakfasted and dressed.

Clara was her earliest visitor, and each asked the other

L^TITIA AND SIR WILLOUGHBY 321

whether she had slept, and took the answer from the face
presented to her. The rings of Lsetitia's eyes were very
dark. Clara was her mirror, and she said : 'A singular
object to be persecuted through a night for her hand ! I
know these two damp dead leaves I wear on my cheeks
to remind me of midnight vigils. But you have slept
well, Clara.'

'I have slept well, and yet I could say I have not slept
at all, Lsetitia. I was with you, dear, part in dream and
part in thought : hoping to find you sensible before I
go.'

'Sensible. That is the word for me.'

Lsetitia briefly sketched the history of the night; and
Clara said, with a manifest sincerity that testified of her
gratitude to Sir WDIoughby: 'Could you resist him, so
earnest as he is?'

Lsetitia saw the human nature without sourness : and
replied : ' I hope, Clara, you will not begin with a large
stock of sentiment, for there is nothing like it for making
you hard, matter-of-fact, worldly, calculating.'

The next visitor was Vernon, exceedingly anxious for
news of Mr. Dale. Lsetitia went into her father's room to
obtain it for him. Returning she found them both with
sad visages, and she ventured, in alarm for them, to ask
the cause.

'It's this,' Vernon said: 'Willoughby will everlast-
ingly tease that boy to be loved by him. Perhaps, poor
feUow, he had an excuse last night. Anyhow he went
into Crossjay's room this morning, woke him up and
talked to him, and set the lad crying, and what with one
thing and another Cross jay got a berry in his throat, as
he calls it, and poured out everything he knew and all
he had done. I needn't tell you the consequence. He
has ruined himself here for good, so I must take him.'

Vernon glanced at Clara. 'You must indeed,' said

322 THE EGOIST

she. 'He is my boy as well as yours. No chance of
pardon?'

'It 'snot likely.'

'Lsetitia!'

'What can I do?'

'Oh! what can you not do?'

'I do not know.'

'Teach him to forgive !'

Lsetitia's brows were heavy and Clara forebore to
torment her.

She would not descend to the family breakfast-table.
Clara would fain have stayed to drink tea with her in her
own room, but a last act of conformity was demanded of
the liberated young lady. She promised to run up the
moment breakfast was over. Not unnaturally, therefore,
Lsetitia supposed it to be she to whom she gave admission,
half an hour later, with a glad cry of, 'Come in, dear.'

The knock had sounded like Clara's.

Sir WiUoughby entered.

He stepped forward. He seized her hands. 'Dear!'
he said. 'You cannot withdraw that. You called me
dear. I am, I must be dear to you. The word is out,
by accident or not, but, by heaven, I have it and I give
it up to no one. And love me or not — ^marry me, and
my love will bring it back to you. You have taught me
I am not so strong. I must have you by my side. You
have powers I did not credit you with.'

'You are mistaken in me, Sir Willoughby,' Lsetitia
said feebly, outworn as she was.

'A woman who can resist me by declining to be my
wife, through a whole night of entreaty, has the quality
I need for my house, and I batter at her ears for months,
with as little rest as I had last night, before I surrender
my chance of her. But I told you last night I want you
within the twelve hours. I have staked my pride on it.

L^TITIA AND SIR WILLOUGHBY 323

By noon you are mine: you are introduced to Mrs.
Mountstuart as mine, as the lady of my life and house.
And to the world ! I shall not let you go.'

'You will not detain me here, Sir WDloughby?'

'I will detain you. I will use force and guile. I will
spare nothing.'

He raved for a term, as he had done overnight.

On his growing rather breathless, Lsetitia said : * You
do not ask me for love?'

' I do not. I pay you the higher compliment of asking
for you, love or no love. My love shall be enough. Re-
ward me or not. I am not used to be denied.'

'But do you know what you ask for? Do you re-
member what I told you of myself? I am hard, material-
istic ; I have lost faith in romance, the skeleton is present
with me all over life. And my health is not good. I
crave for money. I should marry to be rich. I should
not worship you. I should be a burden, barely a living
one, irresponsive and cold. Conceive such a wife. Sir
Willoughby !'

'It will be you!'

She tried to recall how this would have sung in her ears
long back. Her bosom rose and fell in absolute dejection.
Her ammunition of arguments against him had been ex-
pended overnight.

'You are so unforgiving,' she said.

'Is it I who am?'

'You do not know me.'

' But you are the woman of all the world who knows me,
Lsetitia.'

'Can you think it better for you to be known?'

He was about to say other words : he checked them.
'I believe I do not know myself. Anything you will, only
give me your hand; give it; trust to me; you shall
direct me. If I have faults, help me to obliterate them.'

324 THE EGOIST

'Will you not expect me to regard them as the virtues
of meaner men?'

'You will be my wife?'

Laetitia broke from him, crying: 'Your wife, your
critic ! Oh ! I cannot think it possible. Send for the
ladies. Let them hear me.'

'They are at hand,' said Willoughby, opening the door.

They were in one of the upper rooms anxiously on the
watch.

'Dear ladies,' Lsetitia said to them, as they entered.
'^I am going to wound you, and I grieve to do it: but
rather now than later, if I am to be your housemate. He
asks me for a hand that cannot carry a heart, because
mine is dead. I repeat it. I used to think the heart a
woman's marriage portion for her husband. I see now
that she may consent, and he accept her, without one.
But it is right that you should know what I am when I
consent. I was once a foolish romantic girl; now I am
a sickly woman, all illusions vanished. Privation has
made me what an abounding fortune usually makes of
others — I am an Egoist. I am not deceiving you.
That is my real character. My girl's view of him has
entirely changed; and I am almost indifferent to the
change. I can endeavour to respect him, I cannot
venerate.'

'Dear child !' the ladies gently remonstrated.

Willoughby motioned to them.

'If we are to live together, and I could very happily
live with you,' Lsetitia continued to address them, 'you
must not be ignorant of me. And if you, as I imagine,
worship him blindly, I do not know how we are to live
together. And never shall you quit this house to make
way for me. I have a hard detective eye. I see many
faults.'

'Have we not all of us faults, dear child?'

L^TITIA AND SIR WILLOUGHBY 325

* Not such as he has ; though the excuses of a gentleman
nurtured in idolatry may be pleaded. But he should know-
that they are seen, and seen by her he asks to be his wife,
that no misunderstanding may exist, and while it is yet
time he may consult his feelings. He worships himself.'

'Willoughby?'

'He is vindictive.'

'Our Willoughby?'

'That is not your opinion, ladies. It is firmly mine.
Time has taught it me. So, if you and I are at such
variance, how can we live together? It is an impossi-
bility.'

They looked at Willoughby. He nodded imperiously.

*We have never affirmed that our dear nephew is
devoid of faults. If he is offended . . . And supposing
he claims to be foremost, is it not his rightful claim, made
good by much generosity? Reflect, dear Lsetitia. We
are your friends too.'

She could not chastise the kind ladies any further.

'You have always been my good friends.'

'And you have no other charge against him?'

Lsetitia was milder in saying ; ' He is unpardoning.'

'Name one instance, Lsetitia.'

'He has turned Crossjay out of his house, interdicting
the poor boy ever to enter it again.'

'Crossjay,' said Willoughby, 'was guilty of a piece of
infamous treachery.'

'Which is the cause of your persecuting me to become
your wife !'

There was a cry of 'Persecuting!'

'No young fellow behaving so basely can come to
good,' said Willoughby, stained about the face with
flecks of redness at the lashings he received.

'Honestly,' she retorted. 'He told of himself: and
he must have anticipated the punishment he would meet.

326 THE EGOIST

He should have been studying with a master for his
profession. He has been kept here in comparative idleness
to be alternately petted and discarded: no one but
Vernon Whitford, a poor gentleman doomed to struggle
for a livelihood by literature — I know something of that
struggle — ^too much for me! — ^no one but Mr. Whitford
for his friend.'

'Crossjay is forgiven,' said Willoughby.

'You promise me that?'

'He shall be packed off to a crammer at once.'

'But my home must be Grossjay's home.'

'You are mistress of my house, Lsetitia.'

She hesitated. Her eyelashes grew moist. 'You can
be generous.'

'He is, dear child!' the ladies cried. 'He is. Forget
his errors in his generosity, as we do.'

'There is that wretched man Flitch.'

'That sot has gone about the county for years to get
me a bad character,' said Willoughby.

'It would have been generous in you to have offered
him another chance. He has children.'

'Nine. And I am responsible for them?'

'I speak of being generous.'

'Dictate.' Willoughby spread out his arms.

'Surely now you should be satisfied, Lsetitia?' said the
ladies.

'Is her

Willoughby perceived Mrs. Mountstuart's carriage
coming down the avenue.

'To the full.' He presented his hand.

She raised hers with the fingers catching back before
she ceased to speak and dropped it ; —

'Ladies, you are witnesses that there is no conceal-
ment, there has been no reserve, on my part. May
heaven grant me kinder eyes than I have now. I would

THE CURTAIN FALLS 327

not have you change your opinion of him; only that
you should see how I read him. For the rest, I vow to
do my duty by him. Whatever is of worth in me is at
his service. I am very tired. I feel I must jdeld or break.
This is his wish, and I submit.'

'And I salute my wife,' said Willoughby, making
her hand his own, and wanning to his possession as he
performed the act.

Mrs. Mountstuart's indecent hurry to be at the Hall
before the departure of Dr. Middleton and his daughter,
afflicted him with visions of the physical contrast which
would be sharply perceptible to her this morning of his
Laetitia beside Clara.

But he had the lady with brains! He had: and he
was to learn the nature of that possession in the woman
who is our wife.

CHAPTER L

UPON WHICH THE CURTAIN FALI^

'Plain sense upon the marriage question is my demand
upon man and woman, for the stopping of many a
tragedy.'

These were Dr. Middleton's words in reply to Wil-
loughby's brief explanation.

He did not say that he had shown it parentally while
the tragedy was threatening, or at least there was danger
of a precipitate descent from the levels of comedy. The
parents of hymenseal men and women he was indisposed
to consider as dramatis personse. Nor did he mention
certain sympathetic regrets he entertained in contem-
plation of the health of Mr. Dale, for whom, poor gentle-
man, the proffer of a bottle of the Patteme Port would be

328 THE EGOIST

an egregious mockery. He paced about, anxious for his
departure, and seeming better pleased with the society
of Colonel De Craye than with that of any of the others.
Colonel De Craye assiduously courted him, was anecdotal,
deferential, charmingly vivacious, the very man the Rev.
Doctor liked for company when plxmged in the bustle
of the preliminaries to a journey.

'You would be a cheerful travelling comrade, sir,' he
remarked, and spoke of his doom to lead his daughter
over the Alps and Alpine lakes for the Summer months.

Strange to tell, the Alps for the Summer months, was
a settled project of the colonel's.

And thence Dr. Middleton was to be hauled along to the
habitable quarters of North Italy in high Summer-tide.

That also had been traced for a route on the map of
Colonel De Craye.

'We are started in June, I am informed,' said Dr.
Middleton.

June, by miracle, was the month the colonel had fixed
upon.

'I trust we shall meet, sir,' said he.

'I would gladly reckon it in my catalogue of pleasures,'
the Rev. Doctor responded : 'for in good sooth it is con-
jectureable that I shall be left very much alone.'

'Paris, Strasburg, Basle?' the colonel inquired.

'The Lake of Constance, I am told,' said Dr. Middleton.

Colonel De Craye spied eagerly for an opportunity of
exchanging a pair of syllables with the third and fairest
party of this glorious expedition to come.

WUloughby met him, and rewarded the colonel's frank-
ness in stating that he was on the look-out for Miss^Middle-
ton to take his leave of her, by furnishing him the occasion.
He conducted his friend Horace to the Blue Room, where
Clara and Laetitia were seated circling a half embrace with
a brook oi chatter, and contrived an excuse for leading

THE CURTAIN FALLS 329

Lsetitia forth. Some minutes later Mrs. Mountstuart
called aloud for the colonel, to drive him away. Wil-
loughby, whose good oflSces were unabated by the services
he performed to each in rotation, ushered her into the
Blue Room, hearing her say, as she stood at the entrance :
'Is the man coming to spend a day with me with a face
like that?'

She was met and detained by Clara.

De Craye came out.

'What are you thinking of?' said WiUoughby.

'I was thinking,' said the colonel, 'of developing a
heart, like you, and taking to think of others.'

'At last!'

'Ah, you're a true friend, Willoughby, a true friend.
And a cousin to boot !'

'What ! has Clara been commimicative?'

'The itinerary of a voyage Miss Middleton is going to
make.'

'Do you join them?'

'Why, it would be delightful, Willoughby, but it
happens I 've got a lot of powder I want to let off, and so
I 've an idea of shouldering my gun along the sea-coast
and shooting gulls : which '11 be a harmless form of commit-
ting parricide and matricide aud fratricide — ^for there 's
my family, and I come of it ! — the gull ! And I 've to
talk lively to Mrs. Mountstuart for something like a
matter of twelve hours, calculating that she goes to bed
at midnight: and I wouldn't bet on it; such is the
energy of ladies of that age !'

Willoughby scorned the man who could not conceal a
blow, even though he joked over his discomfiture.

'Gulfl' he muttered.

'A bird that 's easy to be had, and better for stuflSng
than for eating,' said De Craye. 'You'll miss your
cousin.'

330 THE EGOIST

'I have,' replied Willoughby, 'one fully equal to sup-
plying his place.'

There was confusion in the hall for a time, and an
assembly of the household to witness the departure of
Dr. Middleton and his daughter. Vernon had been
driven off by Dr. Comey, who further recommended rest
for Mr. Dale, and promised to keep an eye for Crossjay
along the road.

'I think you will find him at the station, and if you do,
command him to come straight back here,' Lsetitia said
to Clara.

The answer was an affectionate squeeze, and Clara's
hand was extended to Willoughby, who bowed over it
with perfect courtesy, bidding her adieux.

So the knot was cut. And the next carriage to Dr.
Middleton's was Mrs. Moimtstuart's, conveying the great
lady and Colonel De Craye.

'I beg you not to wear that face with me,' she said to
him. ' I have had to dissemble, which I hate, and I have
quite enough to endure, and I must be amused, or I shall
run away from you and enlist that little co'untryman of
yours, and him I can count on to be professionally re-
storative. Who can fathom the heart of a girl ! Here is
Lady Busshe right once more ! And I was wrong. She
must be a gambler by nature. I never should have risked
such a guess as that. Colonel De Craye, you lengthen
your face preternaturally, you distort it purposely.'

'Ma'am,' returned De Craye, 'the boast of our army is
never to know when we are beaten, and that tells of a
great-hearted soldiery. But there 's a field where the
Briton must own his defeat, whether smiling or crying,
and I 'm not so sure that a short howl doesn't do him
honour.'

'She was, I am certain, in love with Vernon Whitford
all along, Colonel De Craye !'

THE CURTAIN FALLS 331

'Ah!' the colonel drank it in. 'I have learnt that it
was not the gentleman in whom I am chiefly interested.
So it was not so hard for the lady to vow to friend Wil-
loughby she would marry no one else !'

'Girls are unfathomable! And Lady Busshe — I know
she did not go by character — shot one of her random
guesses, and she triumphs. We shall never hear the last
of it. And I had aU the opportunities. I 'm bound to
confess I had.'

'Did you by chance, ma'am,' De Craye said with a
twinkle, 'drop a hint to Wnioughby of her turn for Vernon
Whitford?'

'No,' said Mrs. Mountstuart, 'I'm not a mischief-
maker; and the policy of the county is to keep him in
love with himself, or Patteme will be likely to be as dull
as it was without a lady enthroned. When his pride is
at ease he is a prince. I can read men. Now, Colonel
De Craye, pray, be lively.'

'I should have been livelier, I 'm afraid, if you had
dropped a bit of a hint to Willoughby. But you 're the
magnanimous person, ma'am, and revenge for a stroke
in the game of love shows us unworthy to win.'

Mrs. Mountstuart menaced him with her parasol. 'I
forbid sentiments, Colonel De Craye. They are always
followed by sighs.'

'Grant me five minutes of inward retirement, and I '11
come out formed for your commands, ma'am,' said he.

Before the termination of that space De Craye was en-
chanting Mrs. Mountstuart, and she in consequence was
restored to her natural wit.

So, and much so universally, the world of his dread and
his unconscious worship wagged over Sir Willoughby
Patteme and his change of brides, until the preparations
for the festivities of the marriage flushed him in his
county's eyes to something of the splendid glow he had

332 THE EGOIST

worn on the great day of his majority. That was upon
the season when two lovers met between the Swiss and
Tyrol Alps over the Lake of Constance. Sitting beside
them the Comic Muse is grave and sisterly. But taking
a glance at the others of her late company of actors, she
compresses her lips.

THE END

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