And yet, to be honest with himself, was not he behaving in much the same way as the despised Wully Pearce? Was not his chief objection to Vernon based on the latter's reputation as a man of intrigue? It was Phyllida's attraction to Vernon that made him indignant. Had she chosen to bestow herself on a middle-aged squire with acres and a gaunt square hall and a pack of hounds, would he have been at all seriously disconcerted by the prospect? And Vernon could have no honest love for her, because if a man means to wed a young woman, he does not stigmatize her behaviour in scurrilous verses, even to secure an advantage over a supposed rival. Or does he—when he is not quite a gentleman?
Then occurred to him the story he had heard many years ago of a thin unhappy-looking woman who had spoken kindly to him at some crowded Al Fresco entertainment where he and his father and mother had gone one fine July afternoon. He had asked about her as they drove home to the lodgings, and he remembered his mother's warning finger, while his father laughed over Lord B—— and Mrs. D——.
At the end of the tale his mother, a gentle Christian soul, had said it served the baggage right, and bade him never talk to people to whom he had not been presented by his parents. No doubt the circumstances of the two cases were totally different, but he connected them vaguely in his mind.
Moreover, without any doubt, Phyllida had caught his fancy. She disturbed his view. Yet there was nothing that singled her out from a dozen handsome young women with whom he had danced, whose existence save as a bevy he no longer recognized. Still, whatever he thought about the affair, his opinion would never again be invited and, disinherited by Beau Ripple, he must consider his own position with an eye to the future.
He was bracing himself preparatory to this great mental effort, when he perceived round the next bend of the stream Mr. Anthony Clare, pensively leaning against the rugged stem of a pollard willow-tree.
"Tony," said Charles, "Ripple has dismissed me."
"I know," said his friend, "your writ of banishment, signed, sealed and delivered, is pasted on the window of every coffee-house and occupies a large and distinguished space in the vestibule of the Assembly Rooms. What do you propose to do?"
"I might hire myself out to the amiable Hogbin as carter."
"Pshaw," said Tony, "be serious."
"Or I might take to the road."