“You are too good to me, my Lord, – far too good, and too thoughtful of me,” said Sewell, with emotion.
“I am one of those men who must go to the grave misconstrued and misrepresented. He who would be firm in an age of cowardice, he who would be just in an age of jobbery, cannot fail to be calumniated. But, sir, there is a moral stature, as there is a material stature, that requires distance for its proportions; and it is possible posterity will be more just to me than my contemporaries.”
“I would only hope, my Lord, that the time for such a judgment may be long deferred.”
“You are a courtier, sir,” said the Judge, smiling. “It was amongst courtiers I passed my early youth, and I like them. When I was a young man, Colonel Sewell, it was the fashion to make the tour of Europe as a matter of education and good breeding. The French Court was deemed, and justly deemed, the first school of manners, and I firmly believe France herself has suffered in her forms of politeness from having ceased to be the centre of supply to the world. She adulterated the liquor as the consumers decreased in taste and increased in number.”
“How neatly, how admirably expressed!” said Sewell, bowing.
“I had some of that gift once,” said the old man, with a sigh; “but it is a weapon out of use nowadays. Epigram has its place in a museum now as rightfully as an Andrea Ferrara.”
“I declare, my Lord, it is two o’clock. Here is your servant coming to announce luncheon. I am ashamed to-think what a share of your day I have monopolized.”
“You will stay and take some mutton broth, I hope?”
“No, my Lord. I never eat luncheon, and I am, besides, horrified at inflicting you so long already.”
“Sir, if I suffer many of the miseries of old age, I avail myself of some of its few privileges. One of the best of these is, never to be bored. I am old and feeble enough to be able to say to him who wearies me, Leave me – leave-me to myself and my own dreariness. Had you ‘inflicted’ me, as you call it, I ‘d have said as much two hours ago. Your company was, however, most agreeable. You know how to talk, and, what is rarer, you know how to listen.”
Sewell bowed respectfully and in silence.
“I wish the school that trains aides-de-camp could be open to junior barristers and curates,” muttered he, half to himself; then added aloud, “Come and see me soon again. Come to breakfast, or, if you prefer it, to dinner. We dine at seven;” and without further adieu than a slight wave of his hand, he turned away and entered the house.
CHAPTER XXVI. SIR BROOK IN CONFUSION
Tom Lendrick had just parted with his sister as Fossbrooke came up, and, taking his arm in silence, moved slowly down the road.
Seeing his deep preoccupation, Tom did not speak for some time, but walked along without a word. “I hope you found my grandfather in better temper, sir?” asked Tom, at last.
“He refused to receive me; he pleaded illness, or rather he called it by its true name, indisposition. He deputed another gentleman to meet me, – a Colonel Sewell, his stepson.”
“That ‘s the man my father saw at the Cape; a clever sort of person he called him, but, I suspect, not one to his liking; too much man of the world, – too much man of fashion for poor Dad.”
“I hope so,” muttered Fossbrooke, unconsciously.
“Indeed, sir; and why?” asked Tom, eagerly.
“What of Lucy?” said Sir Brook, abruptly; “how did you think she was looking?”
“Well, sir, on the whole, well. I’ve seen her jollier; but, to be sure, it was a leave-taking to-day, and that’s not the occasion to put one in high spirits. Poor girl, she said, ‘Is it not hard, Tom? There are only three of us, and we must all live apart.’”
“So it is, – hard, very hard. I ‘d have tried once more to influence the old Judge if he ‘d have given me a meeting. He may do worse with that office than bestow it on you, Tom. I believe I’d have told him as much.”
“It’s perhaps as well, sir, that you did not see him,” said Tom, with a faint smile.
“Yes,” said Fossbrooke, following along the train of his own thoughts, and not noticing the other’s remark. “He may do worse; he may give it to him, and thus draw closer the ties between them; and if that man once gets admission there, he’ll get influence.”
“Of whom are you talking, sir?”
“I was not speaking, Tom. I was turning over some things in my mind. By the way, we have much to do before evening. Go over to Hodgen’s about those tools; he has not sent them yet: and the blasting-powder, too, has not come down. I ought, if I could manage the time, to test it; but it ‘s too late. I must go to the Castle for five minutes, – five minutes will do it; and I ‘ll pass by Grainger’s on my way back, and buy the flannel – miners’ flannel they call it in the advertisement. We must look our métier, Tom, eh? You told Lucy where to write, and how to address us, I hope?”
“Yes, sir, she wrote it down. By the way, that reminds me of a letter she gave me for you. It was addressed to her care, and came yesterday.”
The old man thrust it in his pocket without so much as a look at it.
“I think the post-mark was Madeira,” said Tom, to try and excite some curiosity.
“Possibly. I have correspondents everywhere.”
“It looked like Trafford’s writing, I thought.”
“Indeed! let us see;” and he drew forth the letter, and broke the envelope. “Right enough, Tom, – it is Trafford.”
He ran his eyes rapidly over the first lines, turned to the next side, and then to the end of the letter, and then once more began at the beginning.
“This is his third attempt, he says, to reach me, having written twice without any acknowledgment; hence he has taken the liberty – and a very great liberty too – to address the present to the care of your sister. His brother died in March last, and the younger brother has now shown symptoms of the same malady, and has been sent out to Madeira. ‘I could not,’ he writes, – ‘I could not refuse to come out here with him, however eager I was to go to Ireland. You can well believe,’” – here the old man slurred over the words, and murmured inaudibly for some seconds. “I see,” added he at last, “he has gone back to his old regiment, with good hopes of the majority. ‘Hinks is sick of the service, and quite willing to leave. Harvey, however, stands above me, and deems it a cruel thing to be passed over. I must have your advice about this, as well as about – ‘” Here again he dropped his voice and mumbled unintelligibly. At length he read on: “‘What is Tom doing? What a shame it would be if a fellow with such abilities should not make his way!’”
“A crying shame,” burst in Tom, “but I neither see the abilities nor the way; would he kindly indicate how to find either or both?”
“‘My mother suggested,’” read on Sir Brook, “‘two or three things which my father could readily obtain, but you know the price of the promotion; you know what I would have to – ‘” Here, once more, the old man stopped abruptly.
“Pray go on, sir,” cried Tom, eagerly; “this interests me much, and as it touches myself I have half a claim to hear it.”
Sir Brook gave no heed to the request, but read on in silence and to himself. Turning to the last page, he said: “‘I may then hope to be in England by the end of the month. I shall not go down to Holt, but straight to Dublin. My leave will expire on the 28th, and this will give me a good excuse for not going home. I am sure you will agree with me that I am doing the right thing.
“‘If I am fortunate enough to meet you in Dublin, I can ask your advice on many things which press for solution; but if you should have left Ireland and gone heaven knows where, what is to become of me?’”
“Got into debt again, evidently,” said Tom, as he puffed his cigar.
“Nothing of the kind. I know thoroughly what he alludes to, though I am not at liberty to speak of it. He wishes me to leave our address with Colonel Cave at the barracks, and that if we should have left Ireland already, he ‘ll try and manage a month’s leave, and pay us a visit.”
“I declare I guessed that!” burst out Tom. “I had a dread of it, from the very day we first planned our project. I said to myself, So sure as we settle down to work, – to work like men who have no thought but how to earn their bread, – some lavender-gloved fellow, with a dressing-case and three hat-boxes, will drop down to disgust us alike with our own hardships and his foppery.”
“He’ll not come,” said Sir Brook, calmly; “and if he should, he will be welcome.”
“Oh! as to that,” stammered out Tom, somewhat ashamed of his late warmth, “Trafford is perhaps the one exception to the sort of thing I am afraid of. He is a fine, manly, candid fellow, with no affectations nor any pretensions.”
“A gentleman, sir, – just a gentleman, and of a very good type.”
The last few lines of the letter were small and finely written, and cost the old man some time to decipher. At last he read them aloud. “‘Am I asking what you would see any objection to accord me, if I entreat you to give me some letter of introduction or presentation to the Chief t Baron? I presume that you know him; and I presume that he might not refuse to know me. It is possible I may be wrong in either or both of these assumptions. I am sure you will be frank in your reply to this request of mine, and say No, if you dislike to say Yes. I made the acquaintance of Colonel Sewell, the Judge’s step-son, at the Cape; but I suspect – I may be wrong – but I suspect that to be presented by the Colonel might not be the smoothest road to his Lordship’s acquaintance, – I was going to write “favor,” but I have no pretension, as yet at least, to aspire that far.’
“‘The Colonel himself told me that his mother and Sir William never met without a quarrel. His affectionate remark was that the Chief Baron was the only creature in Europe whose temper was worse than Lady Lendrick’s, and it would be a blessing to humanity if they could be induced to live together.
“‘I saw a good deal of the Se wells at the Cape. She is charming! She was a Dillon, and her mother a Lascelles, some forty-fifth cousin of my mother’s, – quite enough of relationship, however, to excuse a very rapid intimacy, so that I dined there when I liked, and uninvited. I did not like him so well; but then he beat me at billiards, and always won my money at écarté, and of course these are detracting ingredients which ought not to be thrown into the scale.
“‘How she sings! I don’t know how you, with your rapturous love of music, would escape falling in love with her: all the more that she seems to me one who expects that sort of homage, and thinks herself defrauded if denied it. If the Lord Chief Baron is fond of ballads, he has been her captive this many a day.
“‘My love to Tom, if with you or within reach of you; and believe me, ever yours affectionately, – Lionel Trafford.’”
“It was the eldest son who died,” said Tom, carelessly.
“Yes, the heir. Lionel now succeeds to a splendid fortune and the baronetcy.”
“He told me once that his father had made some sort of compact with his eldest son about cutting off the entail, in case he should desire to do it. In fact, he gave me to understand that he was n’t a favorite with his father, and that, if by any course of events he were likely to succeed to the estate, it was more than probable his father would use this power, and merely leave him what he could not alienate, – a very small property that pertained to the baronetage.”
“With reference to what did he make this revelation to you? What had you been talking of?”
“I scarcely remember. I think it was about younger sons, – how hardly they were treated, and how unfairly.”
“Great hardship truly that a man must labor! not to say that there is not a single career in life he can approach without bringing to it greater advantages than befall humbler men, – a better and more liberal education, superior habits as regards society, powerful friends, and what in a country like ours is inconceivably effective, – the prestige of family. I cannot endure this compassionate tone about younger sons. To my thinking they have the very best opening that life can offer, if they be men to profit by it; and if they are not, I care very little what becomes of them.”
“I do think it hard that my elder brother should have fortune and wealth to over-abundance, while my pittance will scarcely keep me in cigars.”
“You have no right, sir, to think of his affluence. It is not in the record; the necessities of your position have no-relation to his superfluities. Bethink you of yourself, and if cigars are too expensive for you, smoke cavendish. Trafford was full of this cant about the cruelty of primogeniture, but I would have none of it. Whenever a man tells me that he deems it a hardship that he should do anything for his livelihood, I leave him, and hope never to see more of him.”
“Trafford surely did not say so.”
“No, – certainly not; there would have been no correspondence between us if he had. But I want to see these young fellows showing the world that they shrink from no competitorship with any. They have long proved that to confront danger and meet death they are second to none. Let me show that in other qualities they admit of no inferiority, – that they are as ready for enterprise, as well able to stand cold and hunger and thirst, to battle with climate and disease. I know well they can do it, but I want the world to know it.”
“As to intellectual distinctions,” said Tom, “I think they are the equals of any. The best man in Trinity in my day was a fellow-commoner.”
This speech seemed to restore the old man to his best humor. He slapped young Lendrick familiarly on the shoulder and said: “It would be a grand thing, Tom, if we could extend the application of that old French adage, ‘noblesse oblige,’ and make it apply to every career in life and every success. Come along down this street; I want to buy some nails, – we can take them home with us.”
They soon made their purchases; and each, armed with a considerably sized brown-paper parcel, issued from the shop, – the old man eagerly following up the late theme, and insisting on all the advantages good birth and blood conferred, and what a grand resource was the gentleman element in moments of pressure and temptation.
“His Excellency wishes to speak to you, sir,” said a footman, respectfully standing hat in hand before him “The carriage is over the way.”
Sir Brook nodded an assent, and then, turning to Torn, said, “Have the kindness to hold this for me for a moment; I will not detain you longer;” and placing in young Lendrick’s hands a good-sized parcel, he stepped across the street, totally forgetting that over his left arm, the hand of which was in his pocket, a considerable coil of strong rope depended, being one of his late purchases. As he drew nigh the carriage, he made a sign that implied defeat; and mortified as the Viceroy was at the announcement, he could not help smiling at the strange guise in which the old man presented himself.
“And how so, Fossbrooke?” asked he, in answer to the other’s signal.
“Simply, he would not see me, my Lord. Our first meeting had apparently left no very agreeable memories of me, and he scarcely cared to cultivate an acquaintance that opened so inauspiciously.”
“But you sent him your card with my name?”
“Yes; and his reply was to depute another gentleman to receive me and take my communication.”
“Which you refused, of course, to make?”
“Which I refused.”
“Do you incline to suppose that the Chief Baron guessed the object of your visit?”
“I have no means of arriving at that surmise, my Lord. His refusal of me was so peremptory that it left me no clew to any guess.”
“Was the person deputed to receive you one with whom it was at all possible to indicate such an intimation of your business as might convey to the Chief Baron the necessity of seeing you?”
“Quite the reverse, my Lord; he was one with whom, from previous knowledge, I could hold little converse.”
“Then there is, I fear, nothing to be done.”
“Nothing.”
“Except to thank you heartily, my dear Fossbrooke, and ask you once more, why are you going away?”
“I told you last night I was going to make a fortune. I have – to my own astonishment I own it – begun to feel that narrow means are occasionally most inconvenient; that they limit a man’s action in so many ways that he comes at last to experience a sort of slavery; and instead of chafing against this, I am resolved to overcome it, and become rich.”
“I hope, with all my heart, you may. There is no man whom wealth will more become, or who will know how to dispense it more reputably.”
“Why, we have gathered a crowd around us, my Lord,” said Fossbrooke, looking to right and left, where now a number of people had gathered, attracted by the Viceroy’s presence, but still more amused by the strange-looking figure with the hank of rope over his arm, who discoursed so freely with his Excellency. “This is one of the penalties of greatness, I take it,” continued he. “It’s your Excellency’s Collar of St. Patrick costs you these attentions – ”
“I rather suspect it’s your ‘grand cordon,’ Fossbrooke,” said the Viceroy, laughing, while he pointed to the rope.
“Bless my stars!” exclaimed Sir Brook, blushing deeply, “how forgetful I am growing! I hope you forgive me. I am sure you could not suppose – ”
“I could never think anything but good of you, Fossbrooke. Get in, and come out to ‘the Lodge’ to dinner.”
“No, no; impossible. I am heartily ashamed of myself. I grow worse and worse every day; people will lose patience at last, and cut me; good-bye.”
“Wait one moment. I want to ask you something about young Lendrick. Would he take an appointment in a colonial regiment? Would he – ” But Fossbrooke had elbowed his way through the dense crowd by this time, and was far out of hearing, – shocked with himself, and overwhelmed with the thought that in his absurd forgetfulness he might have involved another in ridicule.
“Think of me standing talking to his Excellency with this on my arm, Tom!” said he, flushing with shame and annoyance: “how these absent fits keep advancing on me! When a man begins to forget himself in this fashion, the time is not very distant when his friends will be glad to forget him. I said so this moment to Lord Wilmington, and I am afraid that he agreed with me. Where are the screws, Tom, – have I been forgetting them also?”
“No, sir, I have them here; the holdfasts were not finished, but they will be sent over to us this evening, along with the cramps you ordered.”
“So, then, my head was clear so far,” cried he, with a smile. “In my prosperous days, Tom, these freaks of mine were taken as good jokes, and my friends laughed at them over my Burgundy; but when a man has no longer Burgundy to wash down his blunders with, it is strange how different becomes the criticism, and how much more candid the critic.”
“So that, in point of enlightenment, sir, it is better to be poor.”
“It is what I was just going to observe to you,” said he, calmly. “Can you give me a cigar?”
CHAPTER XXVII. THE TWO LUCYS
Within a week after this incident, while Fossbrooke and young Lendrick were ploughing the salt sea towards their destination, Lucy sat in her room one morning engaged in drawing. She was making a chalk copy from a small photograph her brother had sent her, a likeness of Sir Brook, taken surreptitiously as he sat smoking at a window, little heeding or knowing of the advantage thus taken of him.
The head was considerably advanced, the brow and the eyes were nearly finished, and she was trying for the third time to get an expression into the mouth which the photograph had failed to convey, but which she so often observed in the original. Eagerly intent on her work, she never heard the door open behind her, and was slightly startled as a very gentle hand was laid on her shoulder.
“Is this a very presumptuous step of mine, dear Lucy?” said Mrs. Sewell, with one of her most bewitching smiles: “have I your leave for coming in upon you in this fashion?”
“Of course you have, my dear Mrs. Sewell; it is a great pleasure to me to see you here.”
“And I may take off my bonnet and my shawl and my gloves and my company manner, as my husband calls it?”
“Oh! you have no company manner,” broke in Lucy.
“I used to think not; but men are stern critics, darling, and especially when they are husbands. You will find out, one of these days, how neatly your liege lord will detect every little objectionable trait in your nature, and with what admirable frankness he will caution you against – yourself.”
“I almost think I ‘d rather he would not.”
“I ‘m very certain of it, Lucy,” said the other, with greater firmness than before. “The thing we call love in married life has an existence only a little beyond that of the bouquet you carried to the wedding-breakfast; and it would be unreasonable in a woman to expect it, but she might fairly ask for courtesy and respect, and you would be amazed how churlish even gentlemen can become about expending these graces in their own families.”
Lucy was both shocked and astonished at what she heard, and the grave tone in which the words were uttered surprised her most of all.
Mrs. Sewell had by this time taken off her bonnet and shawl, and, pushing back her luxuriant hair from her forehead, looked as though suffering from headache, for her brows were contracted, and the orbits around her eyes dark and purple-looking.
“You are not quite well to-day,” said Lucy, as she sat down on the sofa beside her, and took her hand.
“About as well as I ever am,” said she, sighing; and then, as if suddenly recollecting herself, added, “India makes such an inroad on health and strength! No buoyancy of temperament ever resisted that fatal climate. You would n’t believe it, Lucy, but I was once famed for high spirits.”
“I can well believe it.”
“It was, however, very long ago. I was little more than a child at the time – that is, I was about fourteen or fifteen – when I left England, to which I returned in my twentieth year. I went back very soon afterwards to nurse my poor father, and be married.”
The depth of sadness in which she spoke the last words made the silence that followed intensely sad and gloomy.
“Yes,” said she, with a deep melancholy smile, “papa called me madcap. Oh dear, if our fathers and mothers could look back from that eternity they have gone to, and see how the traits they traced in our childhood have saddened and sobered down into sternest features, would they recognize us as their own? I don’t look like a madcap now, Lucy, do I?” As she said this, her eyes swam in tears, and her lip trembled convulsively. Then standing hastily up, she drew nigh the table, and leaned over to look at the drawing at which Lucy had been engaged.
“What!” cried she, with almost a shriek, – “what is this? Whose portrait is this? Tell me at once; who is it?”
“A very dear friend of mine and of Tom’s. One you could not have ever met, I’m sure.”
“And how do you know whom I have met?” cried she, fiercely. “What can you know of my life and my associates?”
“I said so, because he is one who has lived long estranged from the world,” said Lucy, gently; for in the sudden burst of the other’s passion she only saw matter for deep compassion. It was but another part of a nature torn and distracted by unceasing anxieties.
“But his name, – his name?” said Mrs. Sewell, wildly.
“His name is Sir Brook Fossbrooke.”
“I knew it, I knew it!” cried she, wildly, – “I knew it!” and said it over and over again. “Go where we will we shall find him. He haunts; us like a curse, – like a curse!” And it was in almost a shriek the last word came forth.
“You cannot know the man if you say this of him,” said Lucy, firmly.
“Not know him! – not know him! You will tell me next that I do not know myself, – not know my own name, – not know the life of bitterness I have lived, – the shame of it, – the ineffable shame of it!” and she threw herself on her face on the sofa, and sobbed convulsively. Long and anxiously did Lucy try all in her power to comfort and console her. She poured out her whole heart in pledges of sisterly love and affection. She assured her of a sympathy that would never desert her; and, last of all, she told her that her judgment of Sir Brook was a mistaken one, – that in the world there lived not one more true-hearted, more generous, or more noble.
“And where did you learn all this, young woman?” said the other, passionately. “In what temptations and trials of your life have these experiences been gained? Oh, don’t be angry with me, dearest Lucy; forgive this rude speech of mine; my head is turning, and I know not what I say. Tell me, child, did this man speak to you of my husband?”
“No.”
“Nor of myself?”
“Not a word. I don’t believe he was aware that we were related to each other.”
“He not aware? Why, it’s his boast that he knows every one and every one’s connections. You never heard him speak without this parade of universal acquaintanceship. But why did he come here? How did you happen to meet him?”
“By the merest accident. Tom found him one day fishing the river close to our house, and they got to talk together; and it ended by his coming to us to tea. Intimacy followed very quickly, and then a close friendship.”
“And do you mean to tell me that all this while he never alluded to us?”
“Never.”
“This is so unlike him, – so unlike him,” muttered she, half to herself. “And the last place you saw him, – where was it?”
“Here in this house.”
“Here! Do you mean that he came here to see you?”
“No; he had some business with grandpapa, and called one morning, but he was not received. Grandpapa was not well, and sent Colonel Sewell to meet him.”
“He sent my husband! And did he go?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“I know it.”
“I never heard of this,” said she, holding her hands to her temples. “About what time was it?”
“It was on Friday last. I remember the day, because it was the last time I saw poor Tom.”
“On Friday last,” said she, pondering. “Yes, you are right. I do remember that Friday;” and she drew up the sleeve of her dress, and looked at a dark-blue mark upon the fair white skin of her arm; but so hastily was the action done that Lucy did not remark it.
“It was on Friday morning. It was on the forenoon of Friday, was it not?”
“Yes. The clock struck one, I remember, as I got back to the house.”
“Tell me, Lucy,” said she in a caressing tone, as she drew her arm round the girl’s waist, – “tell me, darling, how did Colonel Sewell look after that interview? Did he seem angry or irritated? I’ll tell you why I ask this some other time, – but I want to know if he seemed vexed or chagrined by meeting this man.”
“I did not see him after; he went away almost immediately after Sir Brook. I heard his voice talking with grandpapa in the garden, but I went to my room, and we did not meet.”
“As they spoke in the garden, were their voices raised? Did they talk like men excited or in warmth?”
“Yes. Their tone and manner were what you say, – so much so that I went away, not to overhear them. Grandpapa, I know, was angry at something; and when we met at luncheon, he barely spoke to me.”
“And what conclusion did you draw from all this?”
“None! There was nothing to induce me to dwell on the circumstance; besides,” added she, with some irritation, “I am not given to reason upon the traits of people’s manner, or their tone in speaking.”
“Nor perhaps accustomed to inquire, when your grandfather is vexed, what it is that has irritated him.”
“Certainly not. It is a liberty I should not dare to take.”
“Well, darling,” said she, with a saucy laugh, “he is more fortunate in having you for a granddaughter than me. I ‘m afraid I should have less discretion, – at all events, less dread.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” said Lucy, quietly. “Grandpapa is no common person. It is not his temper but his talent that one is loath to encounter.”
“I do not suspect that either would terrify me greatly. As the soldiers say, Lucy, I have been under fire pretty often, and I don’t mind it now. Do you know, child, that we have got into a most irritable tone with each other? Each of us is saying something that provokes a sharp reply, and we are actually sparring without knowing it.”
“I certainly did not know it,” said Lucy, taking her hand within both her own, “and I ask pardon if I have said anything to hurt you.”
Leaving her hand to Lucy unconsciously, and not heeding one word of what she had said, Mrs. Sewell sat with her eyes fixed on the floor deep in thought. “I ‘m sure, Lucy,” said she at last, “I don’t know why I asked you all those questions awhile ago. That man – Sir Brook, I mean – is nothing to me; he ought to be, but he is not. My father and he were friends; that is, my father thought he was his friend, and left him the guardianship of me on his deathbed.”
“Your guardian, – Sir Brook your guardian?” cried Lucy, with intense eagerness.
“Yes; with more power than the law, I believe, would accord to any guardian.” She paused and seemed lost in thought for some seconds, and then went on: “Colonel Sewell and he never liked each other. Sir Brook took little trouble to be liked by him; perhaps Dudley was as careless on his side. What a tiresome vein I have got in! How should you care for all this?”
“But I do care – I care for all that concerns you.”
“I take it, if you were to hear Sir Brook’s account, we should not make a more brilliant figure than himself. He ‘d tell you about our mode of life, and high play, and the rest of it; but, child, every one plays high in India, every one does scores of things there they would n’t do at home, partly because the ennui of life tempts to anything, – anything that would relieve it; and then all are tolerant because all are equally – I was going to say wicked; but I don’t mean wickedness, – I mean bored to that degree that there is no stimulant left without a breach of the decalogue.”
“I think that might be called wickedness,” said Lucy, dryly.
“Call it what you like, only take my word for it you ‘d do the selfsame things if you lived there. I was pretty much what you are now when I left England; and if any naughty creature like myself were to talk, as I am doing to you now, and make confession of all her misdeeds and misfortunes, I’m certain I’d have known how to bridle up and draw away my hand, and retire to a far end of the sofa, and look unutterable pruderies, just as you do this moment.”