‘It’s just as well not,’ I said. ‘You would only have made another row. Didn’t you see any of them?’
‘I saw the old man. He seemed really cut up about it, and professed great concern. He didn’t even refer to you by name—and spoke only in general terms. I told him you were incapable of what was laid to your charge; that I had not the slightest doubt of your claim to the sword,—your word being enough for me,—and that I trusted time would right you. I went too far there, however, for I haven’t the slightest hope of anything of the sort.’
‘How did he take all that?’
‘He only smiled—incredulously and sadly,—so that I couldn’t find it in my heart to tell him all my mind. I only insisted on my own perfect confidence in you.—I’m afraid I made a poor advocate, Wilfrid. Why should I mind his grey hairs where justice is concerned? I am afraid I was false to you, Wilfrid.’
‘Nonsense; you did just the right thing, old boy. Nobody could have done better.’
‘Do you think so? I am so glad! I have been feeling ever since as if I ought to have gone into a rage, and shaken the dust of the place from my feet for a witness against the whole nest of them! But somehow I couldn’t—what with the honest face and the sorrowful look of the old man.’
‘You are always too much of a partisan, Charley; I don’t mean so much in your actions—for this very one disproves that—but in your notions of obligation. You forget that you had to be just to Sir Giles as well as to me, and that he must be judged—not by the absolute facts of the case, but by what appeared to him to be the facts. He could not help misjudging me. But you ought to help misjudging him. So you see your behaviour was guided by an instinct or a soul, or what you will, deeper than your judgment.’
‘That may be—but he ought to have known you better than believe you capable of misconduct.’
‘I don’t know that. He had seen very little of me. But I dare say he puts it down to cleptomania. I think he will be kind enough to give the ugly thing a fine name for my sake. Besides, he must hold either by his son or by me.’
‘That’s the worst that can be said on my side of the question. He must by this time be aware that that son of his is nothing better than a low scoundrel.’