CHAPTER LVI.
ANOTHER TRACE.
So far as my experience goes, it has never been an easy thing to find a man in whom the sense of justice is adjusted perfectly. That is to say, not overdrawn, nor strained to a pitch that is at discord with all human nature; neither on the other hand so lax and flabby, that it yields to every breath, and has no distinctive tone. Therefore I cannot expect to be approved by everybody for my recent act; but the glow of a tender conscience told me that I had not behaved amiss.
Yet the remembrance of my own rage, and utter loss of self-command, frightened me more than I can express, for a single word, a look, a gesture, even a flicker across my own will would have made me then and there a murderer. What a thing for Kitty to hear—if ever she should hear of me again—that my unhappy love of her had been cut short by the hangman! I formed the sensible resolve to keep out of Bulwrag’s way henceforth, unless he should come to seek me; and then his blood must be on his own head.
At first I did not tell my uncle of that brief but hot engagement, because, as I came to think about it, the folly of it dawned on me. For the fierce enjoyment of a minute, I had sacrificed all hope of tracing such faint clues as we had won, and I had shown the arch-enemy in the most palpable form, my suspicions of him. This was unsound policy, and I was loth to confess it yet, lest my chief friend should be discouraged, as well as angry with me. However, the whole thing soon came out, and with so much more tacked on to it, that I was forced to recount the simple facts. But instead of being vexed, as in my opinion a truly wise man must have been, my uncle shouted with delight, and shook his thick sides with laughter.
“So you pulled his nose! Kit Orchardson pulled the nose of the future Lord Roarmore, and the son-in-law of the Earl of Clerinhouse! Show me how you did it. This is too fine!”
“No. I scarcely pulled his nose. I cannot be said to have pulled his nose. All I did was to take him by the nose, and he came after it wonderfully.”
“I see, I see. He just followed his nose; and a lawyer could prove that there was no assault. A man follows his nose without assault or battery. Well, I never thought you were so clever, Kit.”
“Because I never boast,” I answered calmly; and it struck him for the first time that this might be so.
“What will he do?” he asked; “whatever will he do? He can’t very well put up with it; and yet how can he get satisfaction? You wouldn’t fight him, I suppose, even if he deigned to ask you.”