The sensibility of Lord Valhurst was not of sufficient magnitude to separate into two courses: the little he possessed was already occupied by his disappointment, in losing the beautiful prey he believed just falling into his hands, and he had no emotion, therefore, to bestow upon his young reprover. But Halder, who, to want of feeling, added want of sense, roared out, with rude raillery, a gross, which he thought witty attack, both of the defender and the defended.
The young man, with the proud probity of unhackneyed sentiment, made a vindication of his uncorrupt intentions; which produced but louder mirth, and coarser incredulity. The contest, however, was wholly unequal; one had nerves of the most irritable delicacy; the other had never yet, by any sensation, nor any accident, been admonished that nerves made any part of the human composition: in proportion, therefore, as one became more offended, the other grew more callous, till the chivalry of indignant honour, casting prudence, safety, and forbearance away, dictated a hasty challenge, which was accepted with a hoarse laugh of brutal senselessness of danger. Courage is of another description. It risks life with heroism; but it is only to preserve or pursue something, without which the charm of life were dissolved: it meets death with steadiness; but it prepares for immortality with reverence and emotion.
Edgar and Camilla continued their walk in a silence painful to both, but which neither knew how first to break; each wished with earnestness an opening to communication and confidence; but, mutually shocked by the recent adventure, Edgar waited the absence of Mrs. Mittin, to point out the impropriety and insufficiency of such a guard; and Camilla, still aghast with terror, had no power of any sort to begin a discourse.
Their taciturnity, if not well supplied, was, at least, well contrasted by the volubility of Mrs. Mittin, which, as in the bathing house it had been incessant, in declaring, to the three intruders, that both she and the other young lady were persons of honour, was now no less unremitting in boasting how well she had checked and kept them in order.
The horror of the attack she had just escaped became soon but a secondary suffering to Camilla, though, at the moment, it had impressed her more terribly than any actual event of her life, or any scene her creative imagination had ever painted; yet, however dreadful, it was now past; but who could tell the end of what remained? the mute distance of Edgar, her uncertainty of his intentions, her suspicions of his wished secession, the severe task she thought necessary to perform of giving him his liberty, with the anguish of a total inability to judge whether such a step would recall his tenderness, or precipitate his retreat, were suggestions which quickly succeeded, and, in a very short time, wholly domineered over every other.
When they arrived at the house, Edgar demanded if he might hope for the honour of being presented, as a friend of the family, to Mrs. Berlinton.
Reviving, though embarrassed, she looked assent, and went forward to inquire if Mrs. Berlinton were come home.
The servant answered no; but delivered her a letter from that lady; she took it with a look of distress whether or not to invite Edgar to enter, which the, at this period, welcome officiousness of Mrs. Mittin relieved, by saying, 'Come, let us all come in, and make the parlour a little comfortable against Mrs. Berlinton comes home; for, I dare say, there's nothing as it should be. These lodging-houses always want a heap of things one never thinks of before hand.'
They then all three entered, and Mrs. Mittin, who saw, she said, a thousand ways by which she might serve and oblige Mrs. Berlinton, by various suggestions, and even directions, which she hazarded against her return, busied herself to arrange the two parlours to her satisfaction; and, then, went up stairs, to settle, also, all there; making abundant apologies for leaving them, and assuring them she would be back again as soon as she possibly could get all in order.