“Why, the rector, to be sure!” rejoined Gregg, feeling the check unpleasantly.
“Will he?”
“Well, I should say so,” urged the doctor, now quite taken aback, and gazing at the other with eyes of surprise. “But I suppose you know best, Bonamy.”
“Then I am going to keep my knowledge to myself!” snarled the lawyer; and, rattling a handful of silver in his pocket, he stalked away, his hat on the back of his head, and his lank figure more ungainly than usual. He was in the worst of tempers; angry with Lord Dynmore and dissatisfied with himself—given to calling himself, half a dozen times in an hour, a quixotic fool for having thrown away the earl’s business for the sake of a scruple that was little more than a whim. It is all very well to have a queer rugged code of honor of one’s own, and to observe it; but when the observance sends away business—such business as brings with it the social considerations which men prize most highly when they most affect to despise it—why then a man is apt to take out his self-denial in ill-temper. Mr. Bonamy did so.
Dr. Gregg went away calling the lawyer a bear and an ill-bred fellow who did not know his own friends. Alas! the same thing might have been said, and with greater justice, of the rector. The archdeacon sat an hour in his study, waiting patiently for him to return from his district, and after all got but a sorry reception. The elder man expressed, and expressed very warmly—he had come to do so—his full belief in Lindo’s honesty and good faith, and was greatly touched by the effect his words produced upon the young fellow, who had come into the room, after learning his visitor’s presence, with set lips and eyes of challenge, but had by-and-by to turn his back on his friend and look out of the window, while in a very low tone he murmured his thanks. But, alas! the archdeacon went farther, and let drop something about concession, and then the boat was over!
“Concession!” said the young man, turning as on a pivot, with every hair of his whiskers bristling, and his voice clear enough now. “What kind of concession do you mean?”
“Well,” said the archdeacon persuasively, “the earl is a choleric man—a most passionate man, I know; and, when excited, utterly foolish and wrong-headed. But in his cooler moments I do not know any one more just or, indeed, more generous. And I feel sure that if you could prevail on yourself to meet him half-way——”
“By resigning?” snapped the rector, interrupting him point-blank with the question.
“Oh, no, no,” said the archdeacon, “I do not mean that.”
“Then in what way? How?”