“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
Madam Gordeloup, and got altogether the better of that
lady, in a very wonderful way.
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 enamored 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 afterward 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 endeavor to reach, or even the very pathway
