Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/207

 by a spirit of rebellion and the love of a joke, weary of the repression that was partly inevitable, partly self-imposed, glad to find an outlet for my youthful impulses in a direction where my action would involve no political danger. On one good result I can pride myself; I was undoubtedly the instrument of sending my brother-in-law back to his wife a humbled and repentant man. Coralie had no scruple about allowing him to perceive that her attentions had been paid to his rank, not to himself; and his rank was now eclipsed. A few days of sulking was followed by a violent outburst; but my position was too strong. He could not quarrel seriously with his wife's brother on such a ground. He returned to Victoria, and, I had no doubt, received the castigation which he certainly deserved. My interest in him vanished as he vanished from the society that centred round Mlle. Mansoni. At the same time my share in his defeat and humiliation left a soreness between us which lasted for a long while.

I myself had by this time fallen into a severe conflict of feeling. My temperament was not like Varvilliers'. For an hour or two, when I was exhilarated with society and cheered by wine, I could seem to myself such as he naturally and permanently was. But I was not a native of the clime. I raised myself to those heights of unmoral serenity by an effort and an artifice. He forgot himself easily. I was always examining myself. That same motive, or instinct, or tradition of feeling (I do not know how best to describe it) on whose altar I had sacrificed my first passion was still strong in me. I did not fear that Coralie would or could exercise a political influence over me, but I was loth that she should possess a control of any sort. I clung obstinately to the