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'He said he stayed from church to be with Uncle Bat; but when we came back we found him with you. 'Uncle Bat went to sleep, and then he came into the drawing- room. The two girls said nothing more about it. Linda should have remembered that she had never breathed a word to her sister of Alaric's passion for herself. Gertrude's solemn propriety had deterred her, just as she was about to do so.
But had her heart really felt a spark of love for the man of whom she spoke, how much would prudent, sensible, high-minded considerations have weighed with her? Alas! not a feather. Having made her prudent, high-minded speech, she turned round and slept; and poor Linda also turned round and bedewed her pillow. She no longer panted to tell her sister of Alaric's love.
At first these propositions were listened to, and Alaric's friends were led to believe that the matter would be handled in such a way that the prosecution would fall to the ground. But at last all composition was refused.
I have placed him in the chair next to my own, and now he is desirous of sitting above me! 'Twas thus Sir Gregory communed with himself. But Alaric's soliloquy was very different. A listener who could have overheard both would hardly have thought that the same question was being discussed by the two.
Alaric, to give him his due, did everything in his power to persuade him to see the task out to the last. But the assurance and composure of Alaric's manner did more than anything else to provoke and increase Norman's discomfiture. He had been schooling himself to bear a beating with a good grace, and he began to find that he could only bear it as a disgrace.
There were ten or twelve witnesses, all much of the same sort, who proved among them that this sum of twenty thousand pounds had been placed at Alaric's disposal, and that now, alas! the twenty thousand pounds were not forthcoming. It seemed to be a very simple case; and, to Alaric's own understanding, it seemed impossible that his counsel should do anything for him.
We feel after all those centuries the shock which was produced on the literary world of the day by Alaric's sack of Rome, or by the march of the Roman auxiliary troops called "Visigoths" through Gaul into Spain, or by the appearance of the mixed horde called after their leaders "Vandals" in front of Hippo in Africa.
Grateful, indeed! In public life when is there time for gratitude? Who ever thinks of other interest than his own? Such was Alaric's theory of life. But not the less would he have expected gratitude from those whom he might serve. Such also very probably was Sir Gregory's theory when he thought of those who had helped him, instead of those whom he himself had helped.
The hearts of the Senate, lightened for a moment by Alaric's unexpected announcement that he would moderate his demands, sank within them again as they thought on the tribute required of them, and remembered their exhausted treasury.
And so the Chichester family pursued an even course, only varied by Alaric's sudden and DEFINITE decisions to enter either public life, or athletics, or the army, or the world of art it was really extremely hard for so well-equipped a young man to decide to limit himself to any one particular pursuit. Consequently he put off the final choice from day to day.
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