Here she threw such a glance at the sleeping justice that must have pierced him to the marrow had he but been conscious of it. By this, however, Mr. Fielding with the aid of his silk handkerchief had wiped a good deal of the wine and blood from his features, and stood staunching the wound on his forehead. A more truly whimsical expression I never observed in any man before. There was a highly comic look of contrition, humility, and self-abnegation in him, and withal an air of the most perfect good-breeding, that could not possibly have been more contrary to his appearance. Although Cynthia was white and speechless with anger, and she had made what might easily have been construed into a very unprovoked attack on a benefactor, Mr. Fielding behaved, whatever his faults, as only a true gentleman could have done. Cynthia's act had brought him to his senses; he saw that he had pushed the matter too far; but after all he did not apprehend, as I more shrewdly did, that the head and front of his offending lay, not so much in his own conduct, as in that he had been the inspirer of mine. "I crave a thousand pardons of you, madam," says he, "if I have been so unlucky as to carry a jest farther than a jest should go. Perchance it was not conceived in quite the best taste at the outset; but at least I make you all amends. I am sure I am your duteous humble servant, madam, if you will but permit me to be so." Only a person with the instincts of a true gentleman could have shown such a punctilious regard for the feelings of another, and such a disregard for his own. For in a sense he had been deeply provoked, and had suffered more indignity on his own part than any that he had inflicted on Mrs. Cynthia. But no, my little madam refused to be mollified by his humble demeanour. She looked steadily past him, as though he had ceased to be there at all. Upon that my own brief spirit of anger cooled down immediately; for certainly I thought, considering his unhappy plight, poor Fielding was playing a very gallant part. "I think there is enough said, sir," says I, striving to speak as articulately as possible. "I am sure you do very well; and I am equally sure that the apologies should not be all on your side."