Mr. Hope

“ Hope's power as the author of a fighting romance, and his pen again becomes a sword in this picturesque and thrilling story of a mediæval Italian paladin, whose character will recall the Chevalier Bayard to the reader who breathlessly follows him through adventures and dangers that fall thick and fast.
"Mr. Anthony Hope is a striking exemplification of the fact that the talent and quality that are within a man will force themselves out, no matter how circumstances may combine and conspire to keep them under. ”

“ I made him work harder than I would my own son, in fact, for I felt that I had a duty to do by Will."
"And I guess you did it—too well," muttered Grace, with rather a vindictive look at her uncle, which look, however, he did not see.
"Well, to be frank with you, Isaac," spoke Mr. Ford, "the boy says that he did not like the life in the factory. But I did not suppose he would. I did not send him there to like it, but I thought the discipline would do him good. However, he seems to have struck out for himself."
"But, Daddy!" cried Grace, clinging to his arm. "What has happened? Where is Will? ”

“ For a moment the physician looked upon the earnest, tearful girl, and read in her countenance that hope and fear held there a painful struggle.
"While there is life, there is hope," he replied briefly.
"Tell me the truth, doctor, I can bear it," she urged appealingly. "If my sister is going to die, I wish to know it."
"I have seen many recover who appeared nearer to death than she is," he replied, evasively. "As I have just said, where there is life, there is hope."
Ellen turned from him, evidently disappointed at the answer, and the doctor went down-stairs, accompanied by Mr. ”

“ Easily and insensibly the pretty image of Laura Pocklington had filled the vacant space. As he wended his way to Mrs. Pocklington’s, he smiled to think that a month or two ago he had looked forward to a life spent with Isabel Bourne with acquiescence, though not, it is true, with rapture. Had the rapture existed before, it is sad to think that perhaps the smile would have been broader now; for love, when born in trepidation and nursed in joy, is often buried without lamentation and remembered with amusement—kindly, even tender amusement, but still amusement. ”

“ Appeals to duty were met by appeals to justice; she parried entreaty by counter-entreaty, reproofs by protestations of respect, orders by silence. What was to be done? Laura was too old, and the world was too old, for violent remedies. Intercepting correspondence meant exposure to the household. The revolt was appalling, absurd, unnatural; but it was also, as Mr. Pocklington admitted, “infernally awkward.” Laura realised that its awkwardness was her strength, and, having in vain invited actual physical restraint, in its absence walked out and posted her letter. ”

“ Gerald turned round to watch the trial.
“Is the person suspected—supposed to be Nelly Game—in the room?” asked Mr. Jennings, with some surprise. He had expected to see a group of maid-servants.
“Certainly,” said Lord Tottlebury, with a grim smile. And Mrs. Pocklington chuckled.
“Then I certainly can’t,” said Mr. Jennings. And there was an end of that, an end no other than what George had expected. The fat policeman was his sheet-anchor.
The fat policeman, or to give him his proper name, Sergeant Stubbs, unlike Mr. Jennings, was enjoying himself. ”

“ Mrs. Witt was living at Albert Mansions, the “swell villa” at Manchester having gone [28] to join Mr. Witt in limbo. She was at home, and, as George entered, his only prayer was that he might not find Gerald in possession. He had no very clear idea how to proceed in his unpleasant task. “It must depend on how she takes it,” he said. Gerald was not there, but Tommy Myles was, voluble, cheerful, and very much at home, telling Neaera stories of her lover’s school-days. ”

“ Gerald would enjoy their tale quite as much as Neaera.
Low spirits are excusable in persons who are camping on an active volcano, and Neaera felt that this was very much her position. At any moment she might be blown into space, her pleasant dreams shattered, her champions put to shame, and herself driven for ever from the only place in life she cared to occupy. Her abasement was pitiful, and her penitence, being born merely of defeat, offers no basis of edification. ”

“ Fortunately for George, among his friends were men who cared little for public reprobation. Mr. Blodwell did his work, ate his dinner, said what he thought, and esteemed the opinion of society much at the value the Duke of Wellington set upon the views of the French nation. As for Lord Mapledurham and Sidmouth Vane, unpopularity was the breath of their nostrils; and Vane did not hesitate to purchase the pleasure of being in a minority by a sacrifice of consistency ”

“ The art of photography has made much progress in recent years. It is less an engine for the reduction of self-conceit than it used to be, and less a means of revealing how ill-looking a given person can appear under favourable circumstances. But Peckton was behind the time, here as everywhere. Nelly Game’s portrait did faint justice to Neaera Witt, and eight years’ wear had left it blurred and faded almost to the point of indistinctness. It was all very well for George to recognise it. ”

“ PRESENTING AN HONEST WOMAN. To fit square pegs into round holes is one of the favourite pastimes of Nature. She does it roughly, violently, and with wanton disregard of the feelings of the square pegs. When, in her relentless sport, she has at last driven the poor peg in and made it fit, by dint of knocking off and abrading all its corners, philosophers glorify her, calling the process evolution, and plain men wonder why she did not begin at the other end, and make the holes square to fit the pegs.
The square peg on which these trite reflections hang is poor Neaera Witt. ”

“ If they like to kick me out, they can.”
“What’s Tommy Myles so hot against you for?”
“Oh, those girls have got hold of him—Maud, and Isabel Bourne.”
“Isabel Bourne?”
“Yes,” said George, meeting Mr. Blodwell’s questioning eye. “Tommy has a mind to try his luck there, I think.”
“Vice you retired.”
“Well, retired or turned out. It’s like the army, you know; the two come to pretty much the same thing.”
“You must console yourself, my boy,” said Mr. Blodwell, slyly. He heard of most things, and he had heard of Mrs. Pocklington’s last dinner-party. ”

“ Old Dawkins was dead, but the clerk was, and the policeman might be, alive; and, on his return to town, he could see Jennings, the clerk’s son, who had settled down to conveyancing in Lincoln’s Inn, and try to refresh his memory with materials gathered on the spot. For George [53] had already seen Mr. Jennings, and Mr. Jennings remembered nothing about it—it was not his first brief,—but was willing to try to recall the matter if George would get him the details and let him see a picture of the person wanted—a request George did not wish to comply with at the moment. ”

“ Vane gently waved his hand, as if to scatter these clumsy sarcasms. “A man may not be sixty and yet not be an ass,” he languidly observed. “Waiter, some salmon, and a pint of 44.”
“And may be sixty and yet be an ass, eh?” said the Marquis, chuckling.
“Among ourselves, why do you suppose he let her off?” asked Vane.
The Marquis pushed back his chair. “My young friend, you are too wise. Something will happen to you.”
“Hallo!” exclaimed Vane, “here’s Gerald Neston.”
Gerald came hastily up to Mr. Blodwell. “Do you know where George is?” he asked. ”

“ Blodwell. “But, my dear young lady, everything which is public is serious. And this thing is now public, for no doubt to-morrow’s Bull’s-eye will give all your names and addresses.”
“I don’t care,” said Neaera.
[58]
Mr. Blodwell shook his head. “You must consider Gerald and his people.”
“Gerald doesn’t doubt me. If he did——” Neaera left her recreant lover’s fate to the imagination.
“But Lord Tottlebury and the world at large? The world at large always doubts one.” ”

“ Still, however much you may be in love with somebody else, a pretty girl with five thousand a year is luck, and there’s an end of it! So concluded George Neston as he got into his hansom, and drove to Portman Square.
The party was but small, for the Nestons were not one of those families that ramify into bewildering growths of cousins. Lord Tottlebury of course was there, a tall, spare, rather stern-looking man, and his daughter Maud, a bright and pretty girl of twenty, and Gerald, in a flutter ill concealed by the very extravagance of nonchalance. ”

“ George had just informed him of the treaty between himself and Neaera. He had told his tale with some embarrassment. It is so difficult to make people who were not present understand how an interview came to take the course it did.
“She seemed to think it all right,” George said weakly.
“Do you suppose you can shut people’s mouths in that way?”
“There are other ways,” remarked George, grimly, for his temper began to go.
“There are,” assented Mr. Blodwell; “and in these days, if you use them, it’s five pounds [96] or a month, and a vast increase of gossip into the bargain. ”

“ And I want to say now, that though I was rather cross with you when you tried to get me to change my mind about that matter, some time ago, I want to say that I'm sorry for it. I realize that you did it for the best."
"Yes," said Mr. ”

“ That means a journey to Peckton. Confound other people’s affairs!”
George’s surmise was right. Neaera Witt had spent the first half-hour after his departure in a manner fully as heart-rending as he had imagined. Everything was going so well. Gerald was so charming, and life looked, at last, so bright, and now came this! But Gerald was to dine with her, and there was not much time to waste in crying. She dried her eyes, and doctored them back into their lustre, and made a wonderful toilette. Then she entertained Gerald, and filled him with delight all a long evening. ”

“ Lord Tottlebury, who was much less inflexible than he seemed, did not hold out long against Gerald’s vehemence, and the news soon spread that defiance was to be hurled in George’s face. The Bull’s-eye was triumphant. Isabel Bourne and Maud Neston made a hero of Gerald and a heroine of Neaera. Tommy Myles hastened to secure the position of “best man,” and Sidmouth Vane discovered and acknowledged a deep worldly wisdom in Gerald’s conduct.
“Of course,” said he to Mr. Blodwell, on the terrace, “if it came out before the marriage, he’d stand pledged to throw her over, with the cash. ”

“ Aided by Isabel Bourne, he was very successful in this effort: a pretty girl’s company is the best modern substitute for the waters of Lethe.
Nevertheless, his interest remained strong enough to make him join the group which Gerald and Mr. Blodwell formed with Neaera as soon as the men went upstairs. Mr. Blodwell made no secret of the fact that it was with him a case of love at first sight, and [12] openly regretted that his years prevented him fighting Gerald for his prize. ”

“ When he takes it off, he takes off all his wits with it. Your simplicity is positively childish.”
Mr. Blodwell gurgled contentedly over a basin of soup.
“I think no evil unless I’m paid for it,” he said, wiping his mouth. “George found he was wrong, and said so.”
[198]
“I saw the girl in the Park yesterday,” the Marquis remarked. “She’s a pretty girl.”
“Uncommonly. But I’m not aware that being pretty makes a girl a thief.”
“No, but it makes a man a fool.”
“My dear Mapledurham!”
“Did he ever tell you what he found out at Liverpool?” ”

“ George grew stubborn.
“I should like to see the original,” he said.
“Then you can’t,” retorted Gerald, angrily.
George shrugged his shoulders, turned, and left the room.
And they all comforted and cosseted [81] Neaera, and abused George, and made up their minds to let the world know how badly he was behaving.
“It’s our duty to society,” said Lord Tottlebury.
[82]
CHAPTER VII.
AN IMPOSSIBLE BARGAIN. “I should eat humble-pie, George,” said Mr. Blodwell, tapping his eye-glasses against his front teeth. “She’s one too many for you.” ”

“ No, no. She’s so pure, so innocent, isn’t she? Worth any sacrifice?”
“What do you mean, Gerald?” said Neaera.
“You don’t know?” he asked, with a sneer. “What does a man ask for what he’s done? and what will a woman give? Will give? Has given?”
“Hold your tongue!” said George, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Neaera sat still, gazing at her lover with open eyes: only a little shudder ran over her.
“You duped me nicely between you,” Gerald continued, “me and all the world. No truth in it all! A mistake!—all a mistake! He found out—his mistake!” ”

“ Gerald been here, Timms?”
“He looked in for letters, sir; but went away directly on hearing you were here.”
Timms stated this fact as if it were in the ordinary way of friendly intercourse, and withdrew.
“Well, I am——!” exclaimed George, and paused.
The note was addressed in the handwriting he now knew very well, the handwriting of the Bournemouth character.
“Dear Mr. Neston,
“I shall be alone at five o’clock to-day. Will you come and see me?
“Yours sincerely,
“Neaera Witt.”
“You must do as a lady asks you,” said [88] George, “even if she does steal shoes, and you have mentioned it. ”

“ George Neston shared his chambers in Half Moon Street with the Honourable Thomas Buchanan Fillingham Myles, commonly known (as the peerage has it) as Tommy Myles. Tommy also had a small room in the Temple Chambers, where the two Nestons and Mr. Blodwell pursued their livelihood; but Tommy’s appearances at the latter resort were few and brief. He did not trouble George much in Half Moon Street either, being a young man much given to society of all sorts, and very prone to be in bed when most people are up, and vice versâ. ”