“It’s all bosh,” repeated Doodles, coming back to his seat. “She don’t mean to do anything, and never did. I’ve found her out.”
“Found out what?”
“She’s been laughing at you. She got your money out from under your glove, didn’t she?”
“Well, I did put it there.”
“Of course you did. I knew that I should find out what was what if I once went there. I got it all out of her. But, by George, what a woman she is! She swore at me to my very face.”
“Swore at you! In French you mean?”
“No; not in French at all, but damned me in downright English. By George, how I did laugh!—me and everybody belonging to me. I’m blessed if she didn’t.”
“There was nothing like that about her when I saw her.”
“You didn’t turn her inside out as I’ve done; but stop half a moment.” Then he descended, chalked away at his cue hastily, pocketed a shilling or two, and returned. “You didn’t turn her inside out as I’ve done. I tell you, Clavvy, there’s nothing to be done there, and there never was. If you’d kept on going yourself she’d have drained you as dry—as dry as that table. There’s your thirty pounds back, and, upon my word, old fellow, you ought to thank me.”
Archie did thank him, and Doodles was not without his triumph. Of the frequent references to Warwickshire which he had been forced to endure, he said nothing, nor yet of the reference to Michaelmas dinners; and, gradually, as he came to talk frequently to Archie of the Russian spy, and perhaps also to one or two others of his more intimate friends, he began to convince himself that he really had wormed the truth out of Madame Gordeloup, and got altogether the better of that lady, in a very wonderful way.
XXXI
Harry Clavering’s Confession
Harry Clavering, when he went away from Onslow Crescent, after his interview with Cecilia Burton, was a wretched, pitiable man. He had told the truth of himself, as far as he was able to tell it, to a woman whom he thoroughly esteemed, and having done so was convinced that she could no longer entertain any respect for him. He had laid bare to her all his weakness, and for a moment she had spurned him. It was true that she had again reconciled herself to him, struggling to save both him and her sister from future misery—that she had even condescended to implore him to be gracious to Florence, taking that which to her mind seemed then to be the surest path to her object; but not the less did he feel that she must despise him. Having promised his hand to one woman—to a woman whom he still professed that he loved dearly—he had allowed himself to be cheated into offering it to another. And he knew that the cheating had been his own. It was he who had done the evil. Julia, in showing her affection for him, had tendered her love to a man whom she believed to be free. He had intended to walk straight. He had not allowed himself to be enamoured of the wealth possessed by this woman who had thrown herself at his feet. But he had been so weak that he had fallen in his own despite.
There is, I suppose, no young man possessed of average talents and average education, who does not early in life lay out for himself some career with more or less precision—some career which is high in its tendencies and noble in its aspirations, and to which he is afterwards compelled to compare the circumstances of the life which he shapes for himself. In doing this he may not attempt, perhaps, to lay down for himself any prescribed amount of success which he will endeavour to reach, or even the very pathway by which he will strive to be successful; but he will tell himself what are the vices which he will avoid, and what the virtues which he will strive to attain. Few young men ever did this with more precision than it had been done by Harry Clavering, and few with more self-confidence. Very early in life he had been successful—so successful as to enable him to emancipate himself not only from his father’s absolute control, but almost also from any interference on his father’s part. It had seemed to be admitted that he was a better man than his father, better than the other Claverings—the jewel of the race, the Clavering to whom the family would in future years look up, not as their actual head, but as their strongest prop and most assured support. He had said to himself that he would be an honest, truthful, hardworking man, not covetous after money, though conscious that a labourer was worthy of his hire, and conscious also that the better the work done the better should be his wages. Then he had encountered a blow—a heavy blow from a false woman—and he had boasted to himself that he had borne it well, as a man should bear all blows. And now, after all these resolves and all these boastings, he found himself brought by his own weakness to such a pass that he hardly dared to look in the face any of his dearest and most intimate friends.
He was not remiss in telling himself all this. He did draw the comparison ruthlessly between the
