"Compensations of what kind?" Sutch asked uneasily.
"The chance of knowing himself for one thing, for the chief thing. He is brought up short, stopped in his career, perhaps disgraced." Sutch started a little at the word. "Yes, perhaps—disgraced," Durrance repeated. "Well, the shock of the disgrace is, after all, his opportunity. Don't you see that? It's his opportunity to know himself at last. Up to the moment of disgrace his life has all been sham and illusion; the man he believed himself to be, he never was, and now at the last he knows it. Once he knows it, he can set about to retrieve his disgrace. Oh, there are compensations for such a man. You and I know a case in point."
Sutch no longer doubted that Durrance was deliberately referring to Harry Feversham. He had some knowledge, though how he had gained it Sutch could not guess. But the knowledge was not to Sutch's idea quite accurate, and the inaccuracy did Harry Feversham some injustice. It was on that account chiefly that Sutch did not affect any ignorance as to Durrance's allusion. The passage of the years had not diminished his great regard for Harry; he cared for him indeed with a woman's concentration of love, and he could not endure that his memory should be slighted.
"The case you and I know of is not quite in point," he argued. "You are speaking of Harry Feversham."
"Who believed himself a coward, and was not one. He commits the fault which stops his career, he finds out his mistake, he sets himself to the work of retrieving his disgrace. Surely it's a case quite in point."
"Yes, I see," Sutch agreed. "There is another view, a wrong view as I know, but I thought for the moment it was your view—that Harry fancied himself to be a brave man and was suddenly brought up short by discovering that he was a coward. But how did you find out? No one knew the whole truth except myself."
"I am engaged to Miss Eustace," said Durrance.
"She did not know everything. She knew of the disgrace, but she did not know of the determination to retrieve it."
"She knows now," said Durrance; and he added sharply, "You are glad of that—very glad."
Sutch was not aware that by any movement or exclamation he had betrayed his pleasure. His face, no doubt, showed it clearly enough, but Durrance could not see his face. Lieutenant Sutch was puzzled, but he did not deny the imputation.