"I think it would be only the proper thing for him to do," said the Dean rather warmly.
"I don't know about that. Why can't Mildmay say it for himself? But I'll ask Quisanté, if you like."
The Dean was only too conscious of the weakness of his cause; he became humble again in thanking Jimmy for this small promise. "And Mr. Quisanté'll be glad to have done it, I know, whatever the issue of the fight may be," he ended. The remark received for answer no more than a smile from Jimmy. Jimmy was not sure that among the stress of emotions filling Quisanté's heart in case of defeat there would be room for any consoling consciousness of moral rectitude. Perhaps Jimmy himself would not care much about such a solatium. He wanted to win and he wanted Quisanté to win; such was the effect of being much with Quisanté; and in this matter at least, so far as Jimmy's knowledge went, his champion had acted with perfect correctness. At other times Jimmy might have been, like Sir Winterton, apt to exact something a little beyond correctness, but now the spirit of the fight was on him.
The Dean returned with the rather scanty results of his mission, and after luncheon took his courage in both hands and told Sir Winterton what he had done. But for his years and his station, Sir Winterton would, at the first blush, have called him impertinent; the Dean divined the suppressed epithet and defended himself with skill, but, alas, not without verging on the confines of truth. To say that he had happened to meet Jimmy Benyon was to give less than its due credit to his own ingenuity; to say that Jimmy and he had agreed on the proper thing was rather to interpret than to record Jimmy's brief and not very sanguine utterances. However the Dean's motive was very good, and before the meal ended Sir Winterton forgave him, while still sternly negativing the course which his diplomacy suggested. In fact Sir Winterton was very hard to manage; the Dean understood the Quisanté position better and better; Mrs. Baxter gave up her efforts; she had an almost exaggerated belief in the inutility of braying fools in a mortar; she was content to show them the mortar, and if that were not enough to leave them alone. Only the wife persevered, for she thought neither of herself nor of what was right, but only of what might serve her husband. To the meetings he would not speak, to Quisanté he might be got to speak; she would not let him alone while there was a chance of it. And at last she prevailed, not by convincing his reason (which indeed was little involved in the matter either way), not by taming his pride, and not by pointing to his interest, but by the old illogical, perhaps in the strictest view immoral, appeal—"For my sake, because I ask you for your love of me!" For his love of her Sir Winterton consented to write a private note to Alexander Quisanté, stating for his own satisfaction and for his opponent's information the outline of the true facts of the Sinnett affair. Sir Winterton disliked his task very much but, having to do it, he did it as he did everything, as a gentleman would, frankly, simply, cordially, with an obvious trust in Quisanté's chivalry, good faith, and reluctance to fight with any weapons that were not stainless.
"Now we've put it straight," said the Dean gleefully. "He's bound to mention your note and to accept your account, and if he accepts it, his supporters can't help themselves, they must do the same." Sir Winterton agreed that, distasteful as this quasi-appeal to his opponent had been, it could not fail to have the beneficial results which the Dean forecast. There was more cheerfulness at Moors End that evening than had been seen since Japhet Williams rose from the body of the hall, a small but determined Accusing Angel.
It is not so easy to put straight what has once gone crooked, nor so safe to undertake to advise other folks, however much the task may by habit seem to lose half its seriousness. In his heart the Dean was thinking that he had "cornered" Quisanté, and Sir Winterton was hoping that he had combined the advantages of pliancy with the privilege of pride. The note that Quisanté wrote in answer did nothing to disturb this comfortable state of feeling—unless indeed any danger were foreshadowed in the last line or two; "While, as I have said, most ready to accept your assurance, and desirous, as I have always been, of keeping all purely personal questions in the background, I do not feel myself called upon to express any opinion on the course which you have, doubtless after full consideration, adopted in regard to the requests for a public explanation which have been addressed to you by duly qualified electors of the borough." The Dean felt a little uneasy when that sentence was read out to him; was it possible that he had underrated Quisanté's resources and not perceived quite how many ways of escaping from a corner that talented gentleman might discover? Yet there was nothing to quarrel with in the sentence; at the outside it was a courteous intimation of a difference of opinion and of the view (held by every man in the place except Sir Winterton himself) that a simple explanation on a public occasion would have done Sir Winterton's honour no harm and his cause a great deal of good.
Such was the private answer; the public reference was no less neat. First came a ready and ample acceptance of the explanation which Sir Winterton had given. "I accept it unreservedly, I do not repeat it only because it was given to me privately." Then followed an expression of gratitude for the manly and straightforward way in which the speaker felt himself to have been treated by his opponent; then there was an expression of hope that these personal matters might disappear from the contest. "Had I been sensitive, I in my turn might have found matter for complaint, but I was content to place myself in your hands, trusting to your good sense and fairness." (Sir Winterton had not been so content.) "I trust that the episode may be regarded as at an end." Then a pause and—"It is not for me, as I have already observed to my honourable opponent, to express any judgment on the course which he has seen fit to adopt. I have only to accept his word, which I do unhesitatingly, and it is no part of my duty to ask why he preferred to make his explanation to one who is trying to prevent him from sitting in Parliament rather than to those whom he seeks to represent in that high assembly."
This was said gravely and was much cheered. As the cheering went on, a smile gradually bent the speaker's broad expressive mouth; the crowded benches became silent, waiting the fulfilment of the smile's promise. A roguish look came into Quisanté's face, he glanced at his audience, then at his friends on the platform, lastly at his wife who sat on the other side of the chairman's table. He spoke lower than was his wont, colloquially, almost carelessly, with an amused intonation. "At any rate," he said, "I trust that Henstead may once more be thought worthy of the presence of——" He paused, spread out his hands, and sank his voice in mock humility—"of other ladies besides—my wife."
It was well done. May's ready laugh was but the first of a chorus, and Quisanté, sitting down, knew that his shaft had sped home when somebody cried, "Three cheers for Lady May Quisanté!" and they gave them again and again, all standing on their feet. Alas for the Dean! For some men there are many ways out of a corner.