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"Of all things in the world; though it isn't the custom." Miss Hernshaw was silent for a moment. Then she said, "I believe I should like a little time." "Oh, I didn't expect you to answer me at once, I" "But if you are going to Europe?" "I needn't go to Europe at all. I can go to St. Johnswort, and wait for your answer there." "It might be a good while," she urged.
"I don't see how you could have helped coming," said Miss Hernshaw, "when you thought I might write to Mr. St. John at once." Whether this implied excuse or greater blame, Hewson had to go away with it as her final response, and he went away certainly in as great discomfort as he had come.
She seemed, if not genuinely interested, to be paying him an unaffected attention; but when the lady across the table addressed a word to him, Miss Hernshaw, as if she had been watching for some such chance, instantly turned to Hewson. "What do you think of 'Ghosts'?" she asked, with imperative suddenness. "Ghosts?" he echoed.
He did not go back to his position that belief in ghosts should follow from seeing a man who had seen one; he seemed rather annoyed by the encounter. The talk took another turn and distributed itself again between contiguous persons for the brief time that elapsed before the women were to leave the men to their coffee and cigars. When their hostess rose Hewson offered his arm to Miss Hernshaw.
Johnswort as the scene of the apparition, with all the circumstances of the supposed burglary, while tastefully disguising Hewson's identity in the figure of A Well-Known Society-man. John, and one was of Miss Hernshaw.
I can't see what harm there would be in our meeting." "No, I can't, either," said Hewson, as she seemed to refer the point to him. "Should you mind my coming again, say, this evening?" "To-night?" She reflected a moment. "Yes, come to-night." When he came after dinner, Hewson was sensible from the perfect unconsciousness of Mrs. Rock's manner that Miss Hernshaw had been telling her.
In fact, the individual who is incapable of viewing the world from a jocular basis is unsafe, and can be trusted only when the opposition is strong enough to laugh him into line. In the realm of English letters, Thackeray is prince of humorists. He could see right through a brick wall, and never mistook a hawk for a hernshaw.
Sir George embraced with ardor this opportunity of serving her. "I'll be at Hernshaw in one hour," said he, "and ride the black horse south at once." "Excuse me," said Houseman; "but would it not be better for me to go? As a lawyer, I may be more able to cope with her." "Nay," said Mrs. Gaunt, "Sir George is young and handsome. If he manages well, she will tell him more than she will you.
After the first flush of Hewson's triumph had passed he began to enjoy it less, and by-and-by he did not enjoy it at all. He had done right not only in keeping St. John from plundering Miss Hernshaw, but in standing firm and taking the punishment which ought to fall upon him and not on her. But the sense of having done right sufficed him no more than the sense of having got the better of St. John.
He was no sooner out of the house than he felt the necessity of returning. He did not know how or when Miss Hernshaw would write to St. John, but that she would do so, he did not at all doubt, and then, when the truth came out, what would she think of him?
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