‘Your name was never mentioned between us, nor so much as thought on, by him, I’ll swear.’ ‘How know you what was in his heart?’ ‘I know something of his heart. It is a fine and generous one, incapable of perfidy. Besides, why should he think of you in this connexion of his offer, or suspect the truth? Be sure I have not told it him, nor any. I am not so enamoured of it. I protested I would not be a courtier; and he was fain to let it rest at that, ceasing to importune me when he saw I was resolved; implying I might be right--that it was no great matter after all--as indeed it was not.’ Believing what he said, he spoke with obvious sincerity--enough to convince even the dark suspicious nature of him that listened, and who had put these questions--with what intent? Was a corner of the veil here lifted? Hardly enough for Brion to gather more than a faint surmise of what lay behind. Yet the whole truth, if revealed, had seemed a pitiful enough thing to be clothed in such a giant’s robe of artifice. It turned upon one, grown old as his time judged age, and by reason of his years, perhaps, and their disqualifying ravages, become sensible of a loosened hold on those royal affections he had once commanded. It turned upon the thought of an infidelity committed in long past days, and never suspected by her who, thinking their then mutual faith inviolable, would bitterly resent that lost illusion, and visit his deception on his head in terms of final estrangement, finding therein a pretext for ridding herself of what, one might suspect, already a little irked her. It turned upon this pretty witness to his faithlessness--never, indeed, lost wholly sight of--and how at a late day his sin had come home to roost in him, and how it might be used by designing enemies to bring about his ruin. It turned upon all such considerations far more than upon any real suspicion that a vengeful spirit in this young victim of his wrongdoing nursed designs upon his life; though that thought, too, had been weighed and balanced. And now--was he reassured? He believed so. The boy’s scornful repudiation of him was the best evidence in his favour, and it was for that very reason that he had suffered his young defiance and forgiven him his insolence. Had it been otherwise, had his suspicion been in any way confirmed, he would have disposed of him as ruthlessly and remorselessly as he would of any alien conspirator snared into his hands. But now, being reassured, and at liberty to consider him for himself, and not for his imagined designs, a certain emotion, weak and obscure, strange even to himself, but quite genuine in its nature, allowed itself a little room in his breast for play. The eyes which had scorned him, the spirit which had defied, became notes for admiration. They reflected credit on himself; he felt a pride in them; he had a sudden wish to stand well with the boy.