‘You know, he can sue you for breach of contract if you inconvenience him, and that would be confoundedly expensive, and very disagreeable—for you could hardly mention in a court of justice the reason why you left him at a moment’s notice.’
‘But I could pay the fine, without making any row.’
‘And make every one think that he could say more about you than he had done, if he chose to. No; you have to deal with men as they are, you know, and not as they should be; and you cannot treat a poisonous thing in the same way you might one that has no sting. I should advise you quietly to give him three months’ notice; don’t let him see that you think so much of him as would be implied by your leaving him on the spot. Say you want a situation in a large town; you often have wished it, you know, and——’
‘And Ada!’ said Roger, in a constrained voice. ‘While I am palavering to save appearances, I must pass over the insult to her, without a word. As if I should trouble my head about him, except on her account!’
‘Roger, I don’t think you can accuse me of being wanting in a sense of honour; and if you will believe me, you will honour her, and consider her more truly, by not mentioning her name in Askam’s presence. You proved last night that you knew how to take care of her; why condescend to name her to him again?’
There was a pause, during which Roger looked dark and angry, but at last said abruptly—
‘Yes, yes; you are perfectly right. But oh, Lord!’ he added, almost grinding his teeth, ‘it can’t be a good law that protects a cad like that from a horsewhipping. And I would like to be the man to give it him.’
‘Of course, the fighting animal in you would,’ said Michael, who had hardly been prepared for such intense bitterness on Roger’s part. Could he have seen clearly into his friend’s mind, he might have found that the thing which added bitterness to the gall was a first glimmering consciousness that the fault had not been wholly on the side of him whom he so freely apostrophised as ‘cad’ and ‘blackguard.’
‘There’s a higher thing though, than a fighting animal,’ pursued Michael; ‘and that is a gentleman, who does not walk in the dirt, unless circumstances oblige him to.’
Roger made no answer to this oracular utterance, and they presently separated and went their several ways.