his does trouble me much." He was
smiling as he said this, but the smile passed very quickly from his
face. "I will not, however, deceive you. It does trouble me."

"I knew very well that something was wrong."

"I have not complained."

"One can see as much as that without words. What is it that you fear?
What can the man do to you? What matter is it to you if such a one as
that pours out his malice on you? Let it run off like the rain from
the housetops. You are too big even to be stung by such a reptile as
that." He looked into her face, admiring the energy with which she
spoke to him. "As for answering him," she continued to say, "that
may or may not be proper. If it should be done, there are people to
do it. But I am speaking of your own inner self. You have a shield
against your equals, and a sword to attack them with if necessary.
Have you no armour of proof against such a creature as that? Have you
nothing inside you to make you feel that he is too contemptible to be
regarded?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Oh, Plantagenet!"

"Cora, there are different natures which have each their own
excellencies and their own defects. I will not admit that I am a
coward, believing as I do that I could dare to face necessary danger.
But I cannot endure to have my character impugned,--even by Mr. Slide
and Mr. Lopez."

"What matter,--if you are in the right? Why blench if your conscience
accuses you of no fault? I would not blench even if it did. What;--is
a man to be put in the front of everything, and then to be judged as
though he could give all his time to the picking of his steps?"

"Just so! And he must pick them more warily than another."

"I do not believe it. You see all this with jaundiced eyes. I read
somewhere the other day that the great ships have always little worms
attached to them, but that the great ships swim on and know nothing
of the worms."

"The worms conquer at last."

"They shouldn't conquer me! After all, what is it that they say about
the money? That you ought not to have paid it?"

"I begin to think that I was wrong to pay it."

"You certainly were not wrong. I had led the man on. I had been
mistaken. I had thought that he was a gentleman. Having led him on at
first, before you had spoken to me, I did not like to go back from my
word. I did go to the man at Silverbridge who sells the pots, and no
doubt the man, when thus encouraged, told it all to Lopez. When Lopez
went to the town he did s