Part 16 (2/2)
”And what, sir, would you sooner elect to be accounted?”
”A gentleman, madam,” he answered pompously
”I think,” said she quietly, ”that you are in as little danger of becoentleman does not slander a man behind his back, particularly when he owes that man his life Kenneth, I am ashamed of you”
”I do not slander,” he insisted hotly ”You yourself know of the drunken excess ith three nights ago he celebrated his coet what I owe him, and payment is to be made in a manner you little know of If I said of him what I did, it was but in answer to your taunts Think you I could endure comparison with such a ive hiht”
She looked him over with an eye of quiet scorn
”And how, sir, do they call you? The pulpit knight? Or is it the knight of the white feather? Mr Stewart, you weary s hath also a e, and a record of brave deeds, rather than one who has nothing of the man save the coat--that outward symbol you lay such store by”
His handsome, weak face was red with fury
”Since that is so,Cavalier”
And, without soround on his heel and left her
It was her turn to grow angry now, and well it was for him that he had not tarried She dith scorn upon his parting taunt, bethinking herself that in truth she had exaggerated her opinions of Galliard's entleht else A brave, ready-witted man she knew him for, as much from the story of his escape froer, and she deplored that one possessing these ennobling virtues should have fallen notwithstanding upon such evil ways as those which Crispin trod Some day, perchance, when she should come to be better acquainted with him, she would seek to induce hiht take in herwaited for that riper acquaintance which at first she had held necessary--she sought to lead their talk into the channels of this delicate subject But he as sedulously confined it to trivialhihtly to be overthrown In this his conscience was at work Cynthia was the flaw in the satisfaction he eance he was there to wreak He beheld her so pure, so sweet and fresh, that he ory Ashburn His heart sht of how she--the innocent--uilty, and at the contemplation of the sorrohich hea constraint when in her company, for other than stiff and formal he dared not be lest he should dee the first days he had spent at Marleigh, he had been impatient for Joseph Ashburn's return Now he found hiht not coory from Windsor with a letter wherein his brother told hione on to London in quest of hi theKenneth was already returned, was forced to possess his soul in patience until his brother, having learnt as to be learnt of Cromwell, should journey home
And so the days sped on, and a ore itself out in peace at Castle Marleigh, none dreaht Crispin and Gregory sat together at the board after Kenneth and Cynthia had withdrawn, and both drank deep--the one for the vice of it, the other (as he had always done) to seek forgetfulness
He needed it now more than ever, for he feared that the consideration of Cynthia ht yet un such evidences of his ways of life he ht have allowed his considerations of her to weigh less heavily As it was, she sought him out, nor seemed rebuffed at his efforts to evade her, and in every way she manifested a kindliness that drove hi her
Kenneth, knowing naught of the wo but the outward signs, which, with ready jealousy, he rew sullen and churlish to her, to Galliard, and even to Gregory
For hours he would h in this clownish fashi+on matters were to be mended Did Cynthia but speak to Crispin, he scowled; did Crispin answer her, he grit his teeth at the covertith his fancy invested Crispin's tones; whilst did they chance to laugh together--a contingency that fortunately for his sanity was rare--he writhed in fury He was a man transformed, and at times there was murder in his heart Had he been a swordsainst the Tavern Knight, blood would have been shed in Marleigh Park betwixt them
It seemed at last as if with his insensate jealousy all the evil huht to the surface, to overwhelotry for a parent may truly be accounted virtues
He cast off, not abruptly, but piecemeal, those outward syed for a feather-trihtly hue; then those stiff white bands that reeked of sanctity and cant for a collar of fine point; next it was his coat that took on a worldly edge of silver lace And so, little by little, step by step, was the metamorphosis effected, until by the end of the week he caallant, dazzling Cavalier
Out of a stern, forbidding Covenanter he was transforeous fop He walked in an atmosphere of o had hung so straight and limp--was noisted into ht ear in a ribbon of pale blue silk
Galliard noted the change in a to what follies youth is driven when it woos, he accounted Cynthia responsible for it, and laughed in his sardonic hereat the boy would blush and scowl in one Gregory, too, looked on and laughed, setting it down to the saht was driven to ponder
With a courtier's rai and affected in his speech, and he--whose utterance a while ago had been marked by a scriptural flavour--now set it off with some of Galliard's less unseeallant Cynthia required, he swore that a ruffling gallant should she find hih to see that his ribbons, his fopperies, and his capers served but to make him ridiculous in her eyes He did indeed perceive, however, that in spite of this wondrous transfornify these fripperies?” she asked him, one day, ”any more than did your coat of decent black? Are these also outward symbols?”