," says the Colonel, with a glance of
kindness. The anger has disappeared from under his brows; at that moment
the menaced battle is postponed.

"And yet I know that it must come," says poor Clive, telling me the
story as he hangs on my arm, and we pace through the Park. "The Colonel
and I are walking on a mine, and that poor little wife of mine is
perpetually flinging little shells to fire it. I sometimes wish it were
blown up, and I were done for, Pen. I don't think my widow would break
her heart about me. No; I have no right to say that; it's a shame to say
that; she tries her very best to please me, poor little dear. It's the
fault of my temper, perhaps, that she can't. But they neither understand
me, don't you see? the Colonel can't help thinking I am a degraded
being, because I am fond of painting. Still, dear old boy, he patronises
Ridley; a man of genius, whom those sentries ought to salute, by Jove,
sir, when he passes. Ridley patronised by an old officer of Indian
dragoons, a little bit of a Rosey, and a fellow who is not fit to lay
his palette for him! I want sometimes to ask J. J.'s pardon, after the
Colonel has been talking to him in his confounded condescending way,
uttering some awful bosh about the fine arts. Rosey follows him, and
trips round J. J.'s studio, and pretends to admire, and says, 'How soft;
how sweet!' recalling some of mamma-in-law's dreadful expressions, which
make me shudder when I hear them. If my poor old father had a confidant
into whose arm he could hook his own, and whom he could pester with his
family griefs as I do you, the dear old boy would have his dreary story
to tell too. I hate banks, bankers, Bundelcund, indigo, cotton, and
the whole business. I go to that confounded board, and never hear one
syllable that the fellows are talking about. I sit there because he
wishes me to sit there; don't you think he sees that my heart is out
of the business; that I would rather be at home in my painting-room?
We don't understand each other, but we feel each other, as it were
by instinct. Each thinks in his own way, but knows what the other is
thinking. We fight mute battles, don't you see, and, our thoughts,
though we don't express them, are perceptible to one another, and come
out from our eyes, or pass out from us somehow, and meet, and fight, and
strike, and wound."

Of course Clive's confidant saw how sore and unhappy the poor fellow
was, and commiserated his fatal but natural conditi