“Horace!” cried Arthur in a towering passion, and taking his stand in front of the chair in which his brother leant back, calm and impassible, “you have no right--none whatever--especially after what I said just now, to believe me capable--” “It is partly from the very words you said just now that I draw my conclusions,” interrupted Horace. “What old Duberly drew _his_ from can only of course be guessed at.” “_Guessed_ at! What utter rot! What confounded humbug!” “Well, have it your own way. Give up that poor girl Sophy--for it _is_ giving her up if you don’t satisfy her father--be talked of all over the county as--” “I don’t care a d--n about that,” growled Arthur. “So many fellows have said before they were tried. Throw away all chance of that blessed home at Fairleigh, that the poor girls have built upon so much; and all because you haven’t the courage, or rather because you are too self-indulgent, to give up a little momentary amusement,--or rather, if you like it better, though I confess to considering it a distinction without a difference, because you happen to be a little--as I said before--spooney on John Beacham’s wife.” Arthur made a gesture indicative of disgust. “Hear me out, please,” Horace went on to say. “What I want you to do is, to think seriously of all these necessary consequences, and to ask yourself whether _le jeu vaut la chandelle_. I, for my part--but then I have the good fortune neither to be, nor to fancy myself, in love--have an idea that it does not. In the first place, remember--not that we are any of us in much danger of the fact escaping our memory--what a wretched home this is. Think what a contrast to the dulness, the restraint, the everyday--well, I won’t go on; we both know only too well how wretched one person can contrive to make a house--but just think of the contrast to all this that Fairleigh is! Old Duberly, with his cheerful, hearty ways--I declare Lady M.’s are enough to give one a sickener of refinement; everyone allowed to please himself; no one lying in wait for occasions on which to differ; annoying trifles, or trifles that might have been annoying, delightfully slided over; and no ‘head-of-the-house’ tyranny, causing one to long at every hour of the day for the desperate remedy of a bloodless revolution--” “That is all very true, but--”