Still he had a heart, and it would speak,--so long at
least, as the object affecting it was present. But, alas! it had no
memory. Like the unjust judge, he might redress a wrong that cried
to him, but out of sight and hearing it had for him no existence.
To a man he would not have told a deliberate lie--except, indeed,
a woman was in the case; but to women he had lied enough to sink the
whole ship of fools. Nevertheless, had the accusing angel himself
called him a liar, he would have instantly offered him his choice
of weapons.
There was in him by nature, however, a certain generosity which
all the vice he had shared in had not quenched. Overbearing, he
was not yet too overbearing to appreciate a manly carriage, and had
been pleased with what some would have considered the boorishness
of Malcolm's behaviour--such not perceiving that it had the
same source as the true aristocratic bearing--namely, a certain
unselfish confidence which is the mother of dignity.
He had, of course, been a spendthrift--and so much the better,
being otherwise what he was; for a cautious and frugal voluptuary
is about the lowest style of man. Hence he had never been out of
difficulties, and when, a year or so agone, he succeeded to his
brother's marquisate, he was, notwithstanding his enlarged income,
far too much involved to hope any immediate rescue from them. His
new property, however, would afford him a refuge from troublesome
creditors; there he might also avoid expenditure for a season, and
perhaps rally the forces of a dissolute life; the place was not
new to him, having, some twenty years before, spent nearly twelve
months there, of which time the recollections were not altogether
unpleasant: weighing all these things he had made up his mind, and
here he was at Lossie House.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124