Mr. Bonamy prudently shifted his ground, and got back to the rector. “Well, all I can say is that a more foolish, reckless, useless piece of idiocy I never heard of in my life!” he declared in a tone of scorn.
“I call it glorious!” said Daintry, looking dreamily across the table and slowly withdrawing an egg-spoon from her mouth. “I shall never say anything against him again.”
Mr. Bonamy looked at her for an instant as if he would annihilate her. And then he went on with his breakfast.
Apparently, however, the outburst had relieved him, for presently he began on his own account.
“Has your friend any private means?” he asked, casting an ungracious glance at the barrister, and returning at once to his buttered toast.
“Who? Lindo, do you mean?” Jack replied in surprise.
“Yes.”
“Something, I should say. Perhaps a hundred a year. Why?”
“Because, if that is all he has,” the lawyer growled, buttering a fresh piece of toast and frowning at it savagely, “I think that you had better see him and prevent him making a fool of himself. That is all.”
His tone meant more than his words expressed. Kate’s eyes sought Jack’s in alarm, only to be instantly averted. Though she had the urn before her, she turned red and white, and had to bury her face in her cup to hide her discomposure. Yet she need not have feared. Mr. Bonamy was otherwise engaged, and as for Jack, her embarrassment told him nothing of which he was not already aware. He knew that his service was and must be a thankless and barren service—that to him fell the empty part of the slave in the triumph. Had he not within the last few hours—when the news that the rector had descended the Big Pit to tend the wounded and comfort the dying first reached the town, and a dozen voices were loud in his praise—had he not seen Kate’s face now bright with triumph and now melting with tender anxiety. Had he not felt a bitter pang of jealousy as he listened to his friend’s praises? and had he not crushed down the feeling manfully, bravely, heroically, and spoken as loudly, ay, and as cordially after an instant’s effort, as the most fervent?