 the tortured man had bequeathed him this
condition of high civilization among their other bequests. Your withered
contracted Egoists of the hut and the grot reck not of public opinion; they
crave but for liberty and leisure to scratch themselves and soothe an excessive
scratch. Willoughby was expansive, a blooming one, born to look down upon a
tributary world, and to exult in being looked to. Do we wonder at his
consternation in the prospect of that world's blowing foul on him? Princes have
their obligations to teach them they are mortal, and the brilliant heir of a
tributary world is equally enchained by the homage it brings him; - more,
inasmuch as it is immaterial, elusive, not gathered by the tax, and he cannot
capitally punish the treasonable recusants. Still must he be brilliant; he must
court his people. He must ever, both in his reputation and his person, aching
though he be, show them a face and a leg.
    The wounded gentleman shut himself up in his laboratory, where he could
stride to and fro, and stretch out his arms for physical relief, secure from
observation of his fantastical shapes, under the idea that he was meditating.
There was perhaps enough to make him fancy it in the heavy fire of shots
exchanged between his nerves and the situation; there were notable flashes. He
would not avow that he was in an agony: it was merely a desire for exercise.
    Quintessence of worldliness, Mrs. Mountstuart appeared through his farthest
window, swinging her skirts on a turn at the end of the lawn, with Horace De
Craye smirking beside her. And the woman's vaunted penetration was unable to
detect the histrionic Irishism of the fellow. Or she liked him for his acting
and nonsense; nor she only. The voluble beast was created to snare women.
Willoughby became smitten with an adoration of stedfastness in women. The
incarnation of that divine quality crossed his eyes. She was clad in beauty.
    A horrible nondescript convulsion composed of yawn and groan drove him to
his instruments, to avert a renewal of the shock; and while arranging and fixing
them for their unwonted task, he compared himself advantageously with men like
Vernon and De Craye, and others of the county, his fellows in the hunting-field
and on the Magistrate's bench, who neither understood nor cared for solid work,
beneficial practical work, the work of Science.
    He was obliged to relinquish it: his hand shook.
    »Experiments will not advance much at this rate,« he said, casting the
noxious retardation on his enemies.
    It was not to be contested
