A more precious document had never been handed to
him. It chased back to midnight the doubt hovering
over his belief in himself;—phrased to say,
that he was no longer the Victor Radnor known to the
world. And it extinguished a corpse-like recollection
of a baleful dream in the night. Here shone radiant
witness of his being the very man; save for the spot
of his recent confusion in distinguishing his identity
or in feeling that he stood whole and solid.—Because
of two mature maiden ladies? Yes, because of
two maiden ladies, my good fellow. And friend
Colney, you know the ladies, and what the getting
round them for one’s purposes really means.
The sprite of Colney Durance had struck him smartly
overnight. Victor’s internal crow was over
Colney now. And when you have the optimist and
pessimist acutely opposed in a mixing group, they direct
lively conversations at one another across the gulf
of distance, even of time. For a principle is
involved, besides the knowledge of the other’s
triumph or dismay. The couple are scales of a
balance; and not before last night had Victor ever
consented to think of Colney ascending while he dropped
low to graze the pebbles.
He left his hotel for the station, singing the great
aria of the fourth Act of the Favorita: neglected
since that mighty German with his Rienzi, and Tannhauser,
and Tristan and Isolda, had mastered him, to the displacement
of his boyhood’s beloved sugary -inis and -antes
and -zettis; had clearly mastered, not beguiled, him;
had wafted him up to a new realm, invigorating if
severer. But now his youth would have its voice.
He travelled up to town with Sir Abraham Quatley and
talked, and took and gave hints upon City and Commercial
affairs, while the honeyed Italian of the conventional,
gloriously animal, stress and flutter had a revel
in his veins, now and then mutedly ebullient at the
mouth: honeyed, golden, rich in visions;—having
surely much more of Nature’s encouragement to
her children?
CHAPTER XXIV
NESTA’S ENGAGEMENT
A word in his ear from Fenellan, touching that man
Blathenoy, set the wheels of Victor’s brain
at work upon his defences, for a minute, on the walk
Westward. Who knew?—who did not know!
He had a torpid consciousness that he cringed to the
world, with an entreaty to the great monster to hold
off in ignorance; and the next instant, he had caught
its miserable spies by the lurcher neck and was towering.
He dwelt on his contempt of them, to curtain the power
they could stir.
‘The little woman, you say, took to Dartrey?’
Fenellan, with the usual apologetic moderation of
a second statement, thought ‘there was the look
of it.’
’Well, we must watch over her. Dartrey!—but
Dartrey’s an honest fellow with women.
But men are men. Very few men spare a woman when
the mad fit is on her. A little woman-pretty
little woman!—wife to Jacob Blathenoy!
She mustn’t at her age have any close choosing—under
her hand. And Dartrey’s just the figure
to strike a spark in a tinder-box head.’
Copyrights
One of Our Conquerors — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
