“It has excitement,” said Maltravers, evasively.
“And the excitement is of a noble character?”
“Scarcely so, I fear—it is so made up of mean and malignant motives,—there is in it so much jealousy of our friends, so much unfairness to our enemies;—such readiness to attribute to others the basest objects,—such willingness to avail ourselves of the poorest stratagems! The ends may be great, but the means are very ambiguous.”
“I knew you would feel this,” exclaimed Lady Florence, with a heightened colour.
“Did you?” said Maltravers, rather interested as well as surprised. “I scarcely imagined it possible that you would deign to divine secrets so insignificant.”
“You did not do me justice, then,” returned Lady Florence, with an arch yet half-painful smile; “for—but I was about to be impertinent.”
“Nay, say on.”
“For—then—I do not imagine you to be one apt to do injustice to yourself.”
“Oh, you consider me presumptuous and arrogant; but that is common report, and you do right, perhaps, to believe it.”
“Was there ever any one unconscious of his own merit?” asked Lady Florence, proudly. “They who distrust themselves have good reason for it.”