But Jackson went aloft, and began to look down upon me, to whom he owed everything, as he surely must have known. He chaffed me about my Oriental Princess, a subject not only too lofty for him, but exceedingly painful to me just now. For I felt myself out in the cold, as it were; and with all due allowance for exalted spirits, there is such a thing as good taste; and there is, or ought to be, such a thing as sympathy. And the deeper a man is down in the hole of love, the more should the fellow at the top desire, and strive (without hooking him in the back) to wind him up to bank again. However, I never let them hear a groan, but endeavoured to content myself by meditating on the comparative grandeur of my own position. Grace was all pity, and flutter, and excitement, and very tender interest about my state of mind, and laid down the law, like the Lord Chief-Justice in some very complicated Liquidation-suit. But when I said to her point-blank, "Very well; as you have it all so clear, let me drive you in mother's pony-trap; and then you will make it all right for me with Sûr Imar, and with Dariel," to my great disgust her answer was, "I am quite ready, George--if dear Jack thinks it proper." "Dear Jack, indeed!" I replied with undisguised contempt, for Stoneman had persuaded her to drop the "son"; or perhaps she had made him his own father. At any rate, they had found out between them that "Jack" was of higher rank among the novelists than his offspring had as yet attained. However that might be, he was her Jack-of-all trades now; and I, who once did everything, must be proud of second fiddle. That settled all interference of theirs. And, in truth, I would not have let her interfere if a thousand dear Jacks had sanctioned it. In the flow or ebb of his own affairs, let every man paddle his own canoe. Inspirited thus, I made up my mind that if Harold did not appear right early, the proper thing for me would be to pay my visit without him, for the master of the place had clearly said that I might call upon him at any time; though that would be of little comfort to me, unless I might call upon his daughter too. And here I confessed myself quite at a loss, being entirely in the dark as to the social usages, and the tiptop tone of the Caucasus, which must be in a position to look down upon ours. But I said to myself, "Shall extreme humility bring me to so low a pass, that a savage young Osset--whatever that may be--shall trample on the British flag? That a swaggering bully who scorns noble dogs, and breaks the legs of lovebirds, shall scare a young Englishman from his true love, and carry her off, and disdainfully treat her, as Rakhan his father behaved to his mother? Where is my courage, or sense of right, or even manly compassion, that I should permit such a sacrilege as that?"