tep which he had proposed to
take. No woman, I think, will be hard upon him because of his breach
of faith to Mrs Hurtle. But they will be very hard on him on the score
of his cowardice,--as, I think, unjustly. In social life we hardly stop
to consider how much of that daring spirit which gives mastery comes
from hardness of heart rather than from high purpose, or true courage.
The man who succumbs to his wife, the mother who succumbs to her
daughter, the master who succumbs to his servant, is as often brought
to servility by a continual aversion to the giving of pain, by a
softness which causes the fretfulness of others to be an agony to
himself,--as by any actual fear which the firmness of the imperious one
may have produced. There is an inner softness, a thinness of the
mind's skin, an incapability of seeing or even thinking of the
troubles of others with equanimity, which produces a feeling akin to
fear; but which is compatible not only with courage, but with absolute
firmness of purpose, when the demand for firmness arises so strongly
as to assert itself. With this man it was not really that. He feared
the woman;--or at least such fears did not prevail upon him to be
silent; but he shrank from subjecting her to the blank misery of utter
desertion. After what had passed between them he could hardly bring
himself to tell her that he wanted her no further and to bid her go.
But that was what he had to do. And for that his answer to her last
question prepared the way. 'It was nearly that,' he said.

'Mr Carbury did take it upon himself to rebuke you for showing
yourself on the sands at Lowestoft with such a one as I am?'

'He knew of the letter which I wrote to you.'

'You have canvassed me between you?'

'Of course we have. Is that unnatural? Would you have had me be silent
about you to the oldest and the best friend I have in the world?'

'No, I would not have had you be silent to your oldest and best
friend. I presume you would declare your purpose. But I should not
have supposed you would have asked his leave. When I was travelling
with you, I thought you were a man capable of managing your own
actions. I had heard that in your country girls sometimes hold
themselves at the disposal of their friends,--but I did not dream that
such could be the case with a man who had gone out into the world to
make his fortune.'

Paul Montague did not like it. The punishment to be endured was being
commenced. 'Of course you