“Verdict, served her right”—observed Hazlehurst judicially; “but you forget, my dear boy, that Anderton, though a good fellow enough in his way, was made of such yielding materials, that anybody could do what they liked with him—rather soft here,” he continued, tapping his forehead; “now you have got sterner stuff in you, and if a woman were to try it on with you in that style, it strikes me she’d find her master.”
“Ah! I don’t know,” sighed Coverdale reflectively; “its easier to talk about managing women than to do it—they’ve got a way with ’em, at least the pleasant ones have, of coming over a fellow somehow, and making him fancy for the moment (it doesn’t last, mind you—and there’s the nuisance of it), that he’d rather do what they wish him, than what he wants to do himself. Then again, if a man offends you, you can quietly knock him down, and if he feels aggrieved, he can have you out (not that I admire duelling); but if you quarrel with a woman, there’s no dernier ressort, you can’t knock her down, poor weak thing, and so you’re reduced to growl like a dog, and she to spit like a cat, and you leave off as you began, without having attained any definite result.”
“I have heard of such a thing as moral force,” suggested Hazlehurst ironically.
“That’s one’s only chance,” returned Coverdale, “though it is one that, to speak seriously and sensibly, I’ve tolerably strong faith in. A fellow must be wanting in manliness of character, if he cannot contrive to manage a woman by moral force, as you call it; there’s a quiet way of doing that as well as everything else, only it’s such a confoundedly slow process.”
“No making ’em to come to the point, eh?” rejoined Hazlehurst; “Well, I have my own ideas about it; how they would work, remains to be proved; but as you’ve such splendid theories on the subject, don’t pretend you’re unfitted for woman’s society. Why, man, you’re equal to a whole seminary of young ladies—your ‘quiet manner’ would prove as irresistible with them as it did with the redoubtable Mr. Styles.”
By way of reply to this impertinent allusion, Coverdale shook his clenched fist (which still bore traces of his late encounter) in his friend’s face with a pseudo-threatening gesture. Hazlehurst sprang back in pretended alarm, with to sudden a movement as to arouse the Scotch terrier from his nap, who, waking up in a fright, immediately recurred to his leading idea that there were thieves in the house, and rushed to the door barking furiously. When the laughter, which this little incident excited, had in some degree abated, Hazlehurst resumed—
“But seriously, Harry, I want you to come home with me, and I’ll tell you in confidence why. You and I have known each other from the time we were schoolboys together, and though, as in re Styles, you act a little hastily sometimes, there is no man on whose clear judgment and high principle I’ve greater reliance than on yours. I’ve received a letter from home this morning, which has annoyed me more than I can tell you. To come to the point at once, the case stands thus:—My father’s pet weakness (rather a creditable one) is family pride; now the Grange has belonged to the Hazlehursts for the last three hundred years, but in my great-grandfather’s time the estate became woefully diminished—the old scamp was a regular wild one, and not only made ducks and drakes of everything he could lay his hands on, but as soon as my grandfather came of age, induced him to cut on the entail, and sold the best half of the family property; some of this my grandfather contrived to redeem in his lifetime, and my Governor has been scheming and screwing all his days in order to buy back the rest. In an evil hour he was induced to invest his savings in a railroad, hoping to attain his object sooner; of course it paid beautifully at first; of course in due time a crash came, and the Pater not only lost all his savings, but was forced to sell a farm of five hundred acres, dear to him as the apple of his eye. The individual who purchased it, and who owns the property my great-grandfather sold, is a certain millionaire cotton spinner, as rich as Crœsus; the fellow is said to have £20,000 a-year. Well, since the railroad affair, a jolly old aunt has died, and left the Governor some tin, and he’s breaking his heart to buy back the farm, but cotton spinner refuses to sell. How at the last Hunt Ball, my eldest sister, came out—she is very pretty, and a nice, taking sort of girl in society—and said cotton spinner came, saw, and was conquered! so much so, that having offered serious intentions ever since, he has ended by offering himself. Thereupon arose a difference of opinion between Alice and the Governor—Alice pleading that she didn’t love cotton spinner one bit, and didn’t expect she ever should do so, and Governor declaring that it was all sentimental bosh, and that if she married the man, as much love as it was at all proper for a young lady to feel, would come afterwards. At last, they made a compromise—Alice was to consent to see more of Mr. Crane, and do her best to like him, in which case, said Crane would allow her to postpone her decision till a future period: to this Alice was fain to consent, and now the suitor is coming to the Grange, on approval, and the Governor’s asked a party of people to meet him.”
“And how do you stand affected towards the proposed alliance?” inquired Coverdale, lifting the Skye terrier into his lap by the nape of its neck, and then curling it up like a fried whiting.
“Not over favourably,” returned Hazlehurst, “which, by the way, is very disinterested of me; for if the affair comes off, and the Governor buys his farm back again—which of course is what he is looking to—he promises to settle the residue of the aunt’s legacy upon me, by which I should be some £200 a-year the better; but it would not be a match to please me. I’m very fond of Alice; she is a dear good girl as ever lived, and I don’t admire the cotton spinner: in the first place, he’s nearly, or quite forty, while she was nineteen last term; in the second place, he’s a slow coach, good-natured enough, and all that, but nothing in him.”
“No soul”—suggested Harry.