This did not greatly trouble me. There was that between us, which, it always seemed to me, he sought to give expression to in his letters--a hint secretly conveyed that I must never forget I lived and prospered on sufferance only. Now my own knowledge of the methods of justice, no less than the words Dr. Crackenthorpe had once applied to my case, had long been sufficient to assure me that I had little or nothing to fear from the processes of the law. No less peremptory, however, was the conviction that Jason had it in his power to socially ruin me at a word; and the longer that word was delayed--that is to say, so long as my immunity did not clash with his interests--the better chance I had of testing and retesting my armor of defense. Yet, for all my care, he found out a weak place presently. In the meantime I lived my life, such as it was, and found a certain manner of pleasure in it. Duke and I, still good friends, changed our lodgings, toward the last quarter of the fourth year, and moved into more commodious ones over an iron-monger’s shop in Holborn. Here we had a sitting-room as well as a bedroom common to both of us, and tasted the joys of independence with a double zest. Since our river experience it had become a usual thing for me to join my friend and Dolly in their frequent Sunday walks together. This, at first, I deprecated; but Duke would have it so; and finally it lapsed into an institution. Indeed, upon many occasions I was left to escort the girl alone, Duke pleading disinclination or the counter-attraction of some book he professed to be absorbed in. Was I quite so blind as I appeared to be? I can hardly say myself. That the other entertained a most affectionate regard for the girl was patent. He was always to me, however, such a quaint medley of philosophical resignation and human susceptibility that I truly believe I was more than half inclined to doubt the existence in him of any strong bias toward the attractions of the other sex. His behavior to Dolly was generally much more that of an elder brother toward a much younger half-sister born into the next generation, than of a lover who seeks no greater favor from a woman than that she shall keep the best secrets of her womanhood for him. He petted, indulged, and playfully analyzed her all in one. Now, thinking of him in the stern knowledge of years, I often marvel over the bitter incapacity of the other sex to choose aright the fathers of its children. How could the frailest, prettiest soul among them turn from such luminous depths as his to the meretricious foppery of emptier Parises?