"As exciting debates are usually conducted in the small hours, it was cruel to disturb their infant slumbers. If you want to do that here you will have to get Mabel's consent; it is out of my province. Best play with your children before they go to bed."
"Children of a larger growth will serve. Bear with me, sister. My faculties have been sorely tasked: I am spent and weary—"
"And you must have somebody to play with. Was that why you were so fond of Clarice, because she sometimes humored you? She could hardly serve your turn now: the poor child is in no jesting mood. Nor am I; nor ought you to be."
"Sister, you wrong me. It is my warmth of heart, my fraternal affection, which you have so oft-repulsed. Mine is a poet's nature. You stare, but it is so: it is only lately that I discovered the fact myself. Like the elder Bulwer, I pine for appreciation, for sympathy—"
"You will continue to pine if you go on like this. I never saw such a man for beating about the bush and talking nonsense. What have you accomplished?—I don't want to pry into her secrets, or ask her to share her confidences, but—"
"Now, Jane, if you have any heart left, I will bring the tear of contrition to your eye. I asked and obtained her permission to tell you all I know, and all we have just arranged."
"Don't be so long about it, then. What are the arrangements?"
So I imparted them with but little modification or reservation; and Mabel coming in presently, I went over the main outlines again. It is not every man who could thus communicate state secrets to his family; but mine never talk about home affairs to outsiders. One point is, they do not attend the Sewing Society: if they did, I should feel less safe. They approved in the main.
"It hardly seems fair to Mr. Hartman," said Jane; "but no doubt it's as much as you can expect from her."
"I should say it was: why, she is acting nobly. If it were any other man, he should, and would, have all the making up to do, instead of putting it on us. You see, you—that is, we—don't exactly know what the quarrel was. He must have been in the wrong, of course."