 the
value of my father's character, until I had been taught a little by hearing what
Felix Holt said, and seeing that his life was like his words.«
    Harold looked and listened, and felt his slight jealousy allayed rather than
heightened. »This is not like love,« he said to himself, with some satisfaction.
With all due regard to Harold Transome, he was one of those men who are liable
to make the greater mistakes about a particular woman's feelings, because they
pique themselves on a power of interpretation derived from much experience.
Experience is enlightening, but with a difference. Experiments on live animals
may go on for a long period, and yet the fauna on which they are made may be
limited. There may be a passion in the mind of a woman which precipitates her,
not along the path of easy beguilement, but into a great leap away from it.
Harold's experience had not taught him this; and Esther's enthusiasm about Felix
Holt did not seem to him to be dangerous.
    »He's quite an apostolic sort of fellow, then,« was the self-quieting answer
he gave to her last words. »He didn't look like that; but I had only a short
interview with him, and I was given to understand that he refused to see me in
prison. I believe he's not very well inclined towards me. But you saw a great
deal of him, I suppose; and your testimony to any one is enough for me,« said
Harold, lowering his voice rather tenderly. »Now I know what your opinion is, I
shall spare no effort on behalf of such a young man. In fact, I had come to the
same resolution before, but your wish would make difficult things easy.«
    After that energetic speech of Esther's, as often happens, the tears had
just suffused her eyes. It was nothing more than might have been expected in a
tender-hearted woman, considering Felix Holt's circumstances, and the tears only
made more lovely the look with which she met Harold's when he spoke so kindly
She felt pleased with him; she was open to the fallacious delight of being
assured that she had power over him to make him do what she liked, and quite
forgot the many impressions which had convinced her that Harold had a padded
yoke ready for the neck of every man, woman, and child that depended on him.
    After a short silence, they were getting near the stone gateway, and Harold
said, with an
