“I am sure I shall hate that man,” exclaimed Hadria. “He is not to be trusted; what nonsense he is talking to Lady Engleton!”
“You can’t hear, can you?”
“No; I can see. And she laughs and smiles and bandies words with him. He is amusing certainly; there is that excuse for her; but I wonder how she can do it.”
“What an extraordinary creature you are! To take a prejudice against a man before you have spoken to him.”
“He is cruel, he is cruel!” exclaimed Hadria in a low, excited voice. “He is like some cunning wild animal. Look at Professor Fortescue! his opposite pole—why it is all clearer, at this distance, than if we were under the confusing influence of their speech. See the contrast between that quiet, firm walk, and the insinuating, conceited tread of the other man. Joseph Fleming comes out well too, honest soul!”
“He is carrying a fishing-rod. They have been fishing,” said Valeria.
“Not Professor Fortescue, I am certain. He does not find his pleasure in causing pain.”
“This hero-worship blinds you. Depend upon it, he is not without the primitive instinct to kill.”
“There are individual exceptions to all savage instincts, or the world would never move.”
“Instinct rules the world,” said Miss Du Prel. “At least it is obviously neither reason nor the moral sense that rules it.”