ame he jumped up and took his usual tone; he knew all about
his wife, and needed no information. But I made him sit down again, and
I made him listen to me. I made him listen for half an hour, and at the
end of the time he was interested. He had all the appearance of it; he
sat gazing at me, and at last the tears came into his eyes. I believe I
had a moment of eloquence. I don't know what I said, nor how I said it,
to what point it would bear examination, nor how, if you had been there,
it would seem to you, as a disinterested critic, to hang together; but
I know that after a while there were tears in my own eyes. I begged him
not to give up Blanche; I assured him that she is not so foolish as she
seems; that she is a very delicate little creature to handle, and that,
in reality, whatever she does, she is thinking only of him. He had been
all goodness and kindness to her, I knew that; but he had not, from the
first, been able to conceal from her that he regarded her chiefly as a
pretty kitten. She wished to be more than that, and she took refuge in
flirting, simply to excite his jealousy and make him feel strongly
about her. He has felt strongly, and he was feeling strongly now; he was
feeling passionately--that was my whole contention. But he had perhaps
never made it plain to those rather near-sighted little mental eyes of
hers, and he had let her suppose something that could n't fail to rankle
in her mind and torment it. 'You have let her suppose,' I said, 'that
you were thinking of me, and the poor girl has been jealous of me. I
know it, but from nothing she herself has said. She has said nothing;
she has been too proud and too considerate. If you don't think that 's
to her honor, I do. She has had a chance every day for a week, but she
has treated me without a grain of spite. I have appreciated it, I have
understood it, and it has touched me very much. It ought to touch you,
Mr. Wright. When she heard I was engaged to Mr. Longueville, it gave her
an immense relief. And yet, at the same moment you were protesting, and
denouncing, and saying those horrible things about her! I know how she
appears--she likes admiration. But the admiration in the world which she
would most delight in just now would be yours. She plays with Captain
Lovelock as a child does with a wooden harlequin, she pulls a string
and he throws up his arms and legs. She has about as much intention
of eloping with him as a little girl might have of elopin