“I dare say she does,” replied Harry, turning away to conceal a yawn; “nobody is all bad, any more than they are all the other thing. Characters are like zebras—alternate stripes of black and white; the only difference is, that in some one colour predominates, in some the other.”
There was a pause, then in a lower voice Alice resumed—
“Harry, did it ever occur to you (of course, I do not want you to betray confidence even to me), but did you ever suspect that Arthur was attached to Kate?”
“Never in my life,” was the unhesitating reply. “Arthur always laughed the tender passion, as he used to call it, to scorn.”
“I felt almost certain it was so,” continued Alice; “but I most earnestly hope, for his sake, that I was mistaken; if not, only conceive how wretched this engagement will make him!”
“Judging by my own feelings, when I fancied you had accepted the irresistible cotton-spinner,” returned Coverdale, “I should say that Prometheus, who had a perennial vulture making ‘no end’ of a meal on his liver (which I take to be simply a metaphorical method of stating that the unfortunate Titan was afflicted with hepatic disease), was, by comparison, ‘a gentleman who lived at home at ease.’”
“I used to fancy sometimes,” pursued Alice, “that Kate returned his affection; but she was so reserved, and her manner was always so calm and self-possessed, that it was impossible to judge, with any degree of certainty, what her feelings might be. However, this settles the point so far as she is concerned; if she had really cared about him, she could never have consented to marry Mr. Crane.”
“Hum! well I don’t know that,” returned Harry, meditatively; “it is not all women who have such simple, true, loving hearts as you, my own darling; and a pupil of Arabella Crofton’s may very well be capable of loving one man and marrying another.”
“Why, how came you to know anything about Miss Crofton, Harry?” exclaimed Alice, her curiosity being thoroughly roused by her husband’s second allusion to some previous acquaintance with her cousin’s ci-devant governess.
“I met her in Italy, if you must know,” returned Coverdale “She lived as governess in a family where I visited, and I saw a good deal of her at one time.”