"That's not spoken with your usual cleverness," he said, with a laugh. "You used to be a great deal too clever for me, you and Nell too. But if she did not expect to see me, I don't know what she thought I was made of—everything that is bad, I suppose: and yet you know I could have worried your life out of you if I had liked, Nell."
She turned to him for the first time, and, putting her hands together, said almost inaudibly, "I know—I know. I have thought of that, and I am not ungrateful."
"Grateful! Well, perhaps you have not much call for that, poor little woman. I don't doubt I behaved like a brute, and you were quite right in doing what you did; but you've taken it out of me since, Nell, all the same."
Then there was again a silence, broken only by the labouring, which she could not quite conceal, of her breath.
"You wouldn't believe me," he resumed after a moment, "if I were to set up a sentimental pose, like a sort of a disconsolate widower, eh, would you? Of course it was a position that was not without its advantages. I was not much made for a family man, and both in the way of expense and in—other ways, it suited me well enough. Nobody could expect me to marry them or their daughters, don't you see, when they knew I had a wife alive? So I was allowed my little amusements. You never went in for that kind of thing, Nell? Don't snap me up. You know I told you I never was against a little flirtation. It makes a woman more tolerant, in my opinion, just to know how to amuse herself a little. But Nell was never one of that kind——"
"I hope not, indeed," said Mrs. Dennistoun, to whom he had turned, with indignation.
"I don't see where the emphasis comes in. She was one that a man could be as sure of as of Westminster Abbey. The heart of her husband rests upon her—isn't that what the fellow in the Bible says, or words to that effect? Nell was always a kind of a Bible to me. And you may say that in that case to think of her amusing herself! But you will allow she always did take everything too much au grand serieux. No? to be sure, you'll allow nothing. But still that was the truth. However, I'll allow something if you won't. I'm past my first youth. Oh, you, not a bit of it! You're just as fresh and as pretty, by George! as ever you were. When I saw you stand up in that court yesterday looking as if—not a week had passed since I saw you last, by Jove! Nell—— And how you were hating it, poor old girl, and had come out straining your poor little conscience, and saying what you didn't want to say—for the sake of a worthless fellow like me——"
A sob came out of Elinor's breast, and something half inaudible besides, like a name.
"I can tell you this," he said, turning to Mrs. Dennistoun again, "I couldn't look at her. I'm an unlikely brute for that sort of thing, but if I had looked at her I should have cried. I daresay you don't believe me. Never mind, but it's true."
"I do believe you," said the mother, very low.