Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/82

Rh be justified. You will say to me, 'Roger, you were right. George is not a gentleman.' There! I insist."

"A gentleman? Really, what are we talking about? Do you mean that he wears a false diamond in his shirt? He will take it off if I ask him. There 's a long way between wearing false diamonds—"

"And stealing real ones! I don't know. I have always fancied they go together. At all events, Nora, he is not to suspect that he has been able to make trouble between two old friends."

Nora stood for a moment in irresponsive meditation. "I think he means to go," she said. "If you want him to stay, you must ask him." And without further words she marched out of the room. Roger followed her with his eyes. He thought of Lady Castlewood in "Henry Esmond," who looked "devilish handsome in a passion."

Lady Castlewood, meanwhile, ascended to her own room, flung her work upon the floor, and, dropping into a chair, betook herself to weeping. It was late before she slept. She awoke with a new consciousness of the burden of life. Her own burden certainly was small, but her strength, as yet, was untested. She had thought, in her many reveries, of a possible disagreement with Roger, and prayed that it might never come by a fault of hers. The fault was hers now in that she had surely cared less for duty than for joy. Roger, indeed, had shown a pitiful smallness of view. This was a weakness; but who was she, to keep account of Roger's weaknesses? It was to a weakness of Roger's that she owed her food and raiment and shelter. It helped to quench her resentment that she felt, somehow, that, whether Roger smiled