three first; but perhaps there lay at the spring of his
behaviour an element of all. As thus: - Animosity to Mr. Henry would explain his
hateful usage of him when they were alone; the interests he came to serve would
explain his very different attitude before my lord; that and some spice of a
design of gallantry, his care to stand well with Mrs. Henry; and the pleasure of
malice for itself, the pains he was continually at to mingle and oppose these
lines of conduct.
    Partly because I was a very open friend to my patron, partly because in my
letters to Paris I had often given myself some freedom of remonstrance, I was
included in his diabolical amusement. When I was alone with him, he pursued me
with sneers; before the family he used me with the extreme of friendly
condescension. This was not only painful in itself; not only did it put me
continually in the wrong; but there was in it an element of insult
indescribable. That he should thus leave me out in his dissimulation, as though
even my testimony were too despicable to be considered, galled me to the blood.
But what it was to me is not worth notice. I make but memorandum of it here; and
chiefly for this reason, that it had one good result, and gave me the quicker
sense of Mr. Henry's martyrdom.
    It was on him the burthen fell. How was he to respond to the public advances
of one who never lost a chance of gibing him in private? How was he to smile
back on the deceiver and the insulter? He was condemned to seem ungracious. He
was condemned to silence. Had he been less proud, had he spoken, who would have
credited the truth? The acted calumny had done its work; my lord and Mrs. Henry
were the daily witnesses of what went on; they could have sworn in court that
the Master was a model of long-suffering good-nature, and Mr. Henry a pattern of
jealousy and thanklessness. And ugly enough as these must have appeared in any
one, they seemed tenfold uglier in Mr. Henry; for who could forget that the
Master lay in peril of his life, and that he had already lost his mistress, his
title, and his fortune?
    »Henry, will you ride with me?« asks the Master one day.
    And Mr. Henry, who had been goaded by the man all morning, raps out: »I will
not.«
    »I sometimes wish you would be kinder, Henry,« says the other wistfully