We dare not swear that the suspicion of a jealous pang did not shoot through Phil’s loyal heart at this warmly-spoken eulogy. But if so, he did manful penance by promptly informing his friend. Fordham gave vent to a sardonic chuckle.
“That’s a woman all over. She allows her deliberately-formed judgment to be clean overthrown by a mere fortuitous circumstance. From looking upon me with aversion and distrust the pendulum now swings the other way, and she invests me with heroic virtues because on one occasion I happen to demonstrate the possession of a negative quality—that of not being afraid, or seeming not to be. Faugh! that’s a woman all over! All impulse and featherhead.”
Which was all poor Alma’s warm-hearted little retraction gained from this armour-plated cynic; but she had the negative consolation of never knowing it.
“It isn’t the first time I’ve seen him all there at a pinch; in fact, he got me out of a queer corner once when we were in China. I shouldn’t be here or any where to-day, but for him. But it was a horrid business, and I can’t tell you how he did it; in fact, I hardly like to think of it myself.”
The look of vivid interest which had come over Alma’s face faded away in disappointment.
“Have you been roaming the world long together?” she said.
“Perhaps a couple of years, on and off. We ran against each other first in the course of knocking about. It was at a bull-fight in Barcelona. We had adjoining seats and got into conversation, and, as Britishers are few in the Peninsula, we soon became thick. But, you know, although he’s the best fellow in the world once you know him, old Fordham has his cranks. For instance, he’s a most thorough and confirmed woman-hater.”
“I suppose he was badly treated once,” said Mrs Wyatt. “Still, it strikes me as a foolish thing, and perhaps a little childish, that a man should judge all of us by the measure of one.”
“I don’t know, aunt,” said Alma. “It may be foolish from a certain point of view, morbid perhaps; but I think it shows character. Not many men, I should imagine, except in books, think any of us worth grieving over for long; and the fact that one affair turning out disastrously should stamp its mark on a man’s whole life shows that man to be endowed with a powerful capacity for feeling.”
“Perhaps so,” assented the old lady. “But, Alma, I don’t know what Mr Orlebar will think of us taking his friend to pieces in this free-and-easy fashion.”