Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/334

326 You would have been as incapable of judging between a good painting and a daub, of discriminating between Tannhaüser and Sankey and Moody, as any chawbacon. What I have learned, I have learned with labour, I had no masters, no hand to help me over the stile. I wish I had had your advantages, but no Lord Lamerton took me up. I had not that luck. I have had to fight my own way. I daresay you think it inconsistent in me to take the part of his lordship against my own nephew, but that is because your conscience is disordered. I fight him tooth and nail, because he is an aristocrat and I a democrat. It is my business to attack the Tories and the landed interest and the House of Lords. I am a politician, and in politics all is fair; but we are now in another region altogether, in that of common honesty, and domestic relations; I look on my lord, not as a nobleman, but as a father, and a kind-hearted man who has done much for you; and I am able to take the gauge of your conduct accordingly. You have behaved infamously towards your benefactor, you have hurt him where he is most sensitive—hitting, you contemptible little coward, below the belt. You have stained the pure name of his only daughter, tarnished the honour of an irreproachable house. Who will believe that the girl ran away with you, because she supposed that you were her brother? Everyone knows that you are nothing of the kind. Should it leak out that you are not Captain Saltren's son, how will it mend matters if it be shown that you are the bastard brat of old blear-eyed, one-handed, limping Samuel Ceely?"

Giles winced, he raised both his hands, half beseechingly, half as if to protect himself from the words which struck him as blows. It was a convulsive, not a purposed movement. Also he looked up for a moment, and attempted to speak, but said nothing, the words died away in his throat. Then his head fell again.

"You say you have saved some money," Welsh went