“So I do, then, clearly and distinctly tell you, if my counsels offer a bar to your wishes, they are all enlisted against you.”
“This is the acme of candor. You can only equal it by saying how I could have incurred your disfavor.”
“There is nothing of disfavor in the matter. I think you charming. You are a hero,—very clever, very fascinating, very accomplished; but I believe it would be a great mistake for Fifine to marry you. Your tempers have that sort of resemblance that leave no reliefs in their mutual play. You are each of you hot and hasty, and a little imperious; and if she were not very much in love, and consequently disposed to think a great deal of you and very little of herself, these traits that I speak of would work ill. But if every one of them were otherwise, there would still be one obstacle worse than all!”
“And that is—”
“Can you not guess what I mean, Major Stapylton? You do not, surely, want confidences from me that are more than candor!”
“Do I understand you aright?” said he, growing red and pale by turns, as passion worked within him; “do I apprehend you correctly? These people here are credulous enough to be influenced by the shadowy slanders of the newspapers, and they listen to the half-muttered accusations of a hireling press?”
“They do say very awkward things in the daily press, certainly,” said she, dryly; “and your friends marvel at the silence with which you treat them.”
“Then I have divined your meaning,” said he. “It is by these cowardly assailants I am supposed to be vanquished. I suspect, however, that Colonel Barrington himself was, once on a time, indulged with the same sort of flattery. They said that he had usurped a sovereignty, falsified documents, purloined jewels of immense value. I don't know what they did not charge him with. And what do they say of me? That I exhibited great severity—cruelty, if you will—towards a mob in a state of rebellion; that I reprimanded a very silly subaltern for a misplaced act of humanity. That I have been cashiered, too, they assert, in face of the 'Gazette,' which announces my appointment to an unattached majority. In a word, the enormity of the falsehood has never stayed their hand, and they write of me whatever their unthinking malevolence can suggest to them. You have, perhaps, seen some of these paragraphs?”
“Like every one else, I have read them occasionally; not very attentively, indeed. But, in truth, I'm not a reader of newspapers. Here, for instance, is this morning's as it came from Dublin, still unopened;” and she handed it as she spoke.
“Let us see if I be still honored with their notice,” said he, unfolding the paper, and running his eyes hastily over it. “Debate on the Sugar Bill—Prison Reforms—China—Reinforcements for Canada—Mail Service to the Colonies—Bankruptcy Court. Oh, here we have it—here it is!” and he crushed the paper while he folded down one part of it. “Shall I read it for you? The heading is very tempting: 'Late Military Scandal.—A very curious report is now going through our West-end Clubs, and especially such as are the resort of military officers. It is to the purport that a certain Field-officer of Cavalry—whose conduct has been the subject of severe strictures from the Press—will speedily be called to answer for a much graver offence than the transgression of regimental discipline. The story which has reached us is a very strange one, and we should call it incredible, if we were not informed, on author-ity, that one of our most distinguished Indian generals has declared himself fully satisfied of its truth in every particular.' Can you fancy anything worse than that, Miss Dill? An unknown somebody is alleged to be convinced of an unknown something that attaches to me; for, of course, I am designated as the 'Field-officer of Cavalry,' and the public is graciously pleased to hold me in abhorrence till I have found out my calumniator and refuted him!”