"Better keep him anyway till the end of the season," said the Manager. "We don't want a change now."
"No, sir. I don't want a change any time," said the head-porter, on the defensive. "But order is order. That's all I says."
The pressure of necessity was indeed squeezing the softness out of Ernie.
Enemies thronged his path. He was becoming wary and watchful. Of old, when in the course of life he had come up against hostility and obstruction, he had met it either by evasion or the non-resistance so fatally easy to a man of his temperament. It was different now. His enemies were leagued together to rob him of something dearer than himself. Therefore he would stand: therefore he would fight.
There grew upon him a dignity, a restraint, above all a sternness that men and women alike remarked and respected.
Céleste ceased to mock him; Don John kept his distance; and the Captain was on his guard.
Ernie was sure of it: for Royal was nothing of a diplomatist when dealing with an enemy whom he despised.
Ruth, too, avoided Ernie now.
He noticed it, and did not attempt to approach her.
The two were drawing away, and yet, Ernie sometimes thought, coming closer—for all the girl's grave reserve.