"Mr. Arling is my neighbor and friend, as friendship goes," he said to another; "I neither make, nor listen to, derogatory remarks about him. If you want confirmation for your prejudice, go elsewhere. I am not in that line."
Intentionally or not, Dr. Remy's cool cynicism rather damaged than helped Bergan's cause.
Nevertheless, the steadfast testimony of his upright life remained, and could not be wholly ignored. The feeling was fast becoming general that the young man deserved somewhat better at the hands of the community than he had received. And the feeling would doubtless have manifested itself in good time, and with due caution, if Bergan's unexampled success in the court-room had not fairly dazzled out of sight the last lingering shadow of prejudice, and caused a popular reaction toward the other extreme of enthusiastic admiration and approval,—a reaction all the stronger because spurred on by a lurking sense of past injustice.
Moreover, the little, sleepy town, whose intellectual brilliants were few, and not of the first water, naturally felt that it could not afford to ignore the fine talent which had so suddenly blazed out in its midst, and which might be regarded as, in some sense, of its own creation.
"He really belongs to us, you know," remarked one townsman proudly to another. "He comes of the Bergans of Bergan Hall, on the mother's side,—good old aristocratic stock. And he's an honor to it!"
And so, as has been said before, Bergan's exit from the court-room was a scene of triumph that might easily have turned an older head, and quickened the beating of a chiller heart.
But Bergan took it all quietly, gravely,—almost indifferently. The cloud had settled back upon his brow, and never stirred for any compliment, or congratulation, or friendliness. Most persons attributed it to wounded pride, not yet healed. In the midst of the ovation, they believed that he kept a rankling remembrance of the coldness and neglect which had preceded it. One observer only, a little clearer eyed than the rest, said to him:—
"You look tired."
"And well he may!" responded Mr. Corlew, standing by with a face of unalloyed satisfaction. "He never saw the case until evening before last; and he has not slept for two nights."
There was another, and a stronger, burst of admiration, mingled with wonder; but the complacent, satisfied tone of Mr. Corlew's voice only deepened the shadow on Bergan's brow. Quickly extricating himself from both crowd and client, he walked swiftly home, meditating, as he went, upon the seeming churlishness of human existence, in that it never gives us what we want, or gives it only in such way and shape as to neutralize its sweetness.