ion and in the
violence of his rebuke. He had been lifted for awhile out of himself
by the excitement of his position, and now that he was subsiding
into quiescence, he was unconscious that he had almost mounted into
passion,--that he had spoken of love very nearly with eloquence. But
he did recognise this as a fact,--that Clara was not to be his wife,
and that he had better get back from Belton to London as quickly as
possible. It would be well for him to teach himself to look back on
the result of his aunt's dying request as an episode in his life
satisfactorily concluded. His mother had undoubtedly been right.
Clara, he could now see, would have led him a devil of a life; and
even had she come to him possessed of a moiety of the property,--a
supposition as to which he had very strong doubts,--still she might
have been dear at the money. "No real feeling," he said to himself,
as he walked about the room,--"none whatever; and then so deficient
in delicacy!" But still he was discontented,--because he had been
rejected, and therefore tried to make himself believe that he could
still have her if he chose to persevere. "But no," he said, as he
continued to pace the room, "I have done everything,--more than
everything that honour demands. I shall not ask her again. It is
her own fault. She is an imperious woman, and my mother read her
character aright." It did not occur to him, as he thus consoled
himself for what he had lost, that his mother's accusation against
Clara had been altogether of a different nature. When we console
ourselves by our own arguments, we are not apt to examine their
accuracy with much strictness.

But whether he were consoled or not, it was necessary that he should
go, and in his going he felt himself to be ill-treated. He left the
room, and as he went down-stairs was disturbed and tormented by the
creaking of his own boots. He tried to be dignified as he walked
through the hall, and was troubled at his failure, though he was not
conscious of any one looking at him. Then it was grievous that he
should have to let himself out of the front door without attendance.
At ordinary times he thought as little of such things as most men,
and would not be aware whether he opened a door for himself or had
it opened for him by another;--but now there was a distressing
awkwardness in the necessity for self-exertion. He did not know the
turn of the handle, and was unfamiliar with the manner of exit. He
was being