Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/215

Rh reluctance, resolved to adopt his advice. He shut his doors against Clifford, and when he met him in the streets, instead of greeting him with his wonted cordiality, he passed him with a hasty "Good day, Captain!" which after the first day or two merged into a distant bow. Whenever very good-hearted people are rude, and unjustly so, the rudeness is in the extreme. The Squire felt it so irksome to be less familiar than heretofore with Clifford, that his only remaining desire was now to drop him altogether; and to this consummation of acquaintance the gradually cooling salute appeared rapidly approaching. Meanwhile, Clifford, unable to see Lucy, shunned by her father, and obtaining in answer to all enquiry rude looks from the footman, whom nothing but the most resolute command over his muscles prevented him from knocking down, began to feel, perhaps, for the first time in his life, that an equivocal character is at least no equivocal misfortune. To add to his distress, "the earnings of his previous industry"—we use the expression