Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
If she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she be?
This was the upshot of the consideration which Withers, the poet, gave to the matter, and Withers was doubtless right. 'Tis thus that rejected lovers should think, thus that they should demean themselves; but they seldom come to this philosophy till a few days have passed by, and talking of their grievance does not assist them in doing so.
When, therefore, Harry had declared what had happened to him, and had declared also that he had no further hope, he did not at first find himself much the better for what he had confessed. He was lackadaisical and piteous, and Alaric, though he had endeavoured to be friendly, soon found that he had no power of imparting any comfort. Early in the day they parted, and did not see each other again till the following morning.
'I was going down to Normansgrove on Thursday,' said Harry.
'Yes, I know,' said Alaric.
'I think I shall ask leave to go to-day. It can't make much difference, and the sooner I get away the better.'
And so it was settled. Norman left town the same afternoon, and Alaric, with his blushing honours thick upon him, was left alone.
London was now very empty, and he was constrained to enjoy his glory very much by himself. He had never associated much with the Minusexes and Uppinalls, nor yet with the Joneses and Robinsons of his own office, and it could not be expected that there should be any specially confidential intercourse between them just at the present moment. Undy was of course out of town with the rest of the fashionable world, and Alaric, during the next week, was left very much on his own hands.
'And so,' said he to himself, as he walked solitary along the lone paths of Rotten Row, and across the huge desert to the Marble Arch, 'and so poor Harry's hopes have been all in vain; he has lost his promotion, and now he has lost his bride—poor Harry!'—and then it occurred to him that as he had acquired the promotion it might be his destiny to win the bride also. He had never told himself that he loved Gertrude; he had looked on her as Norman's own, and he, at any rate, was not the man to sigh in despair after anything that was out of his reach. But now, now that Harry's chance was over, and that no bond of friendship could interfere with such a passion, why should he not tell himself that he loved Gertrude? 'If, as Harry had himself said, there was no longer any hope for him, why,' said Alaric to himself, 'why should not I try my chance?' Of Linda, of 'dear, dearest Linda,' at this moment he thought very little, or, perhaps, not at all. Of what Mrs. Woodward might say, of that he did think a good deal.
The week was melancholy and dull, and it passed very slowly at Hampton. On the Sunday morning it became known to them all that Norman was gone, but the subject, by tacit consent, was allowed to pass all but unnoticed. Even Katie, even Uncle Bat, were aware that something had occurred which ought to prevent them from inquiring too particularly why Harry had started back to town in so sudden a manner; and so they said nothing. To Linda, Gertrude had told what had happened; and Linda, as she heard it, asked herself whether she was prepared to be equally obdurate with her lover. He had now the means of supporting a wife, and why should she be obdurate?