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 a 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 illumination 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 opposition to his own sagacity. He loathed and he despised the vision, so his mind had no benefit of it, though he 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 discomfited, 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 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 laboratory, 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. Mountstuart appeared through his farthest window, swinging her skirts on a turn at the end of the lawn, with Horace De Craye smirking beside her. And the woman's vaunted 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. Willoughby became smitten with an adoration of stedfastness 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 unwonted task, he compared himself advantageously with men like Vernon and De Craye, and others of the county, his fellows in the hunting-field and on the Magistrate's bench, who neither understood nor cared for solid work, beneficial practical work, the work of Science.
He was obliged to relinquish 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 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 gentlemen to cross and counterchatter 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 will 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 limbs; during which he was a spectacle for Mrs. Mountstuart at one of the windows. He laughed as he went to her, saying: 'No, no work to-day; it won't be done, positively refuses.'
'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 prolongation 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 in 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!'
'In your gracious consideration, my dear lady. Generally speaking, it would be more advisable to become a chatterer and keep an anecdotal note-book. I could not do it, simply because I could not live with my own emptiness for the sake of making an occasional display of fireworks. I aim at solidity. It is a narrow aim, no doubt; not much appreciated.'
'L?titia 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 Clara?
'Have they caught Crossjay?' he said.
'Apparently they are giving chase to him.'
The likelihood was, that Clara had been overcome by timidity.
'Must you leave us?'
'I think it prudent to take Professor Crooklyn away.'
'He still…?'
'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 Willoughby.'
She knew!
'Like to like: the witty to the witty, ma'am.'
'You won't compliment me with a little bit of jealousy?'
'I forbear from complimenting him.'
'Be philosophical, of course, if you have the philosophy.'
'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 L?titia Dale?'
