"Certainly you are. What people call a delicate organisation,—whereas I am rough and thick and monstrously commonplace."
"Then should you too be thin-skinned for my sake."
"I wish I could make you thick-skinned for your own. It's the only way to be decently comfortable in such a coarse, rough-and-tumble world as this is."
"Let us both do our best," he said, now putting his arm round her and kissing her. "I think I shall send the man his money at once. It is the least of two evils. And now let there never be a word more about it between us."
Then he left her and went back,—not to the study in which he was wont, when at Matching, to work with his private Secretary,—but to a small inner closet of his own, in which many a bitter moment was spent while he thought over that abortive system of decimal coinage by which he had once hoped to make himself one of the great benefactors of his nation, revolving in his mind the troubles which his wife brought upon him, and regretting the golden inanity of the coronet which in the very prime of life had expelled him from the House of Commons. Here he seated himself, and for an hour neither stirred from his seat, nor touched a pen, nor opened a book. He was trying to calculate in his mind what might be the consequences of paying the money to Mr. Lopez. But when the calculation slipped from him,—as it did,—then he demanded of himself whether strict high-minded justice did not call upon him to pay the money let the consequences be what they might. And here his mind was truer to him, and he was able to fix himself to a purpose,—though the resolution to which he came was not, perhaps, wise.
When the hour was over he went to his desk, drew a cheque for £500 in favour of Ferdinand Lopez, and then caused his Secretary to send it in the following note:—
Matching, August 4, 187—.
Sir,—
The Duke of Omnium has read the letter you have addressed to him, dated the 3rd instant. The Duke of Omnium, feeling that you may have been induced to undertake the late contest at Silverbridge by misrepresentations made to you at Gatherum Castle, directs me to enclose a cheque for £500, that being the sum stated by you to have been expended in carrying on the contest at Silverbridge.
I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,Arthur Warburton.
Ferdinand Lopez, Esq.