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 loneliness! 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!' L?titia 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 in 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 evidence 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, succeeded 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, L?titia, 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 Willoughby.'
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 deception. But you are tired. Good-night, my dear friend.'
'Good-night, Sir Willoughby.'
She was allowed to go forth.
Colonel De Craye coming up from the smoking-room, met her and noticed the state of her eyelids, as he wished her goodnight. He saw Willoughby 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 around about his bed after the vigilant gentleman had ceased to debate on the question of his unveiling of himself past forgiveness of her to L?titia, and had surrendered to 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 L?titia to greet her. She broke away from a colloquy 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,' L?titia replied.
'Tell me. But the poor boy is to be expelled! He burst into Crossjay's bedroom 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 untruthful 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, L?titia.'
'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. 'Professor Crooklyn! Professor Crooklyn! 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 greatness 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, L?titia? There is to be no speaking to papa? no delusions? You have agitated me. I feel myself a very small person indeed. I feel I can understand those who admire him. He gives me back my word simply? clearly? without — Oh, that long wrangle in 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 L?titia! 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, L?titia, that it is possible to gild the most glorious day of creation.'
'Doubtless the spirit may do it and make its hues permanent,' said L?titia.
'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 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.'
