“Worse than that, far worse; he has quarrelled with old Sedley, his father's law-agent for forty years, and threatened him with an action for having entered into a compromise without instructions or permission; and he is wrong, clearly wrong, for I saw the correspondence, and if it goes before a jury, they 'll say at once that there was consent.”
“Had he then forgotten it?” asked Julia.
“No, he neither forgets nor remembers; but he has a sort of flighty way of getting himself into a white heat of enthusiasm; and though he cools down occasionally into a little common sense, it does n't last; he rushes back into his heroics, and raves about saving him from himself, rescuing him from the ignoble temptation of self-interest, and such like balderdash.”
“There must be a great deal of true nobility in such a nature,” said Julia.
“I'll tell you what, there is; and it runs through them all except the eldest daughter, and that puppy the diplomatist—there's madness!”
“Madness?”
“Well, I call it madness. Suppose now I was to decline taking another glass of that wine—Steinheimer, I think it's called—till I saw your brother's receipt for the payment of it, would n't you say I was either mad or something very near it?”
“I don't see the parity between the two cases,” said Julia.
“Ah, you 're too sharp for me, Miss Julia, too sharp; but I 'm right all the same. Is n't Jack Bramleigh mad? Is it anything but madness for a man to throw up his commission and go and serve as a sailor—before the mast or behind it, I don't care which; but isn't that madness?”
Julia felt a sense of sickness almost to fainting, but she never spoke nor stirred, while George, quickly noticing her state, turned towards Cutbill and said,—