“I hope, Madam, to be leal and loyal to all men.”
“That is just a bit of general overdoing. It was a sharp wisdom in Jesus Christ, when he told us not to love all humanity, but to love our neighbor. He knew that was about all we could manage. It is above what I can manage this afternoon, so I’ll take my leave of thee.”
Harry left the house almost stupefied by the storm of anger his vanity and his pride in his father’s probable honor, had caused him. But when he reached his room in The Yorkshire Club and had closed the door on all outside influences, a clear revelation came to him, and he audibly expressed it as he walked angrily about the floor:--
“I hate that pompous old squire! He never really liked me--thought I was not good enough for his daughter--and I’ll be glad if he hes to sit a bit lower--and I’m right glad father is going a bit higher. Father is full fit for it. So he is! but oh, Katherine! Oh, Kitty! Kitty! What shall I do without you?”
In the meantime, Dick had decided that he would say nothing about the squire’s probable rival for the new borough, until the speech to be made that evening had been delivered. It might cause him to say something premature and unadvised. When he came to this conclusion he was suddenly aware that he had left his lunch almost untouched on his sister’s table, and that he was naturally hungry.
“No wonder I feel out of sorts!” he thought. “I will go to The Yorkshire and have a decent lunch. Kitty might have known better than offer me anything out of a patty-pan. I’ll go and get some proper eating and then I’ll maybe have some sensible thinking.”
He put this purpose into action at once by going to The Yorkshire Club and ordering a beefsteak with fresh shalots, a glass of port wine, and bread and cheese, and having eaten a satisfying meal, he went to his room and wrote a long letter to Faith, illustrating it with his own suspicions and reflections. This letter he felt to be a very clever move. He told himself that Faith would relate the story to her father and that Mr. Foster would say and do the proper thing much more wisely and effectively than anyone else could.
He did not know the exact hour at which his father was to meet some of the weavers and workers of Annis locality, but he thought if he reached the rendezvous about nine o’clock he would be in time to hear any discussion there might be, and walk to the Clarendon with his father after it. This surmise proved correct, for as he reached the designated place, he saw the crowd, and heard his father speaking to it. Another voice appeared to be interrupting him.