'
'Then I think it was uncalled for and unfair. And how do you know
it is true? I expect you regret it now.'
'Since you bring me into a serious mood, I will speak candidly. I
do believe that remark to be perfectly true, and, having written
it, I would defend it anywhere. But I do often regret having ever
written it, as well as others of the sort. I have grown older
since, and I find such a tone of writing is calculated to do harm
in the world. Every literary Jack becomes a gentleman if he can
only pen a few indifferent satires upon womankind: women
themselves, too, have taken to the trick; and so, upon the whole,
I begin to be rather ashamed of my companions.'
'Ah, Henry, you have fallen in love since and it makes a
difference,' said Mrs. Swancourt with a faint tone of banter.
'That's true; but that is not my reason.'
'Having found that, in a case of your own experience, a so-called
goose was a swan, it seems absurd to deny such a possibility in
other men's experiences.'
'You can hit palpably, cousin Charlotte,' said Knight. 'You are
like the boy who puts a stone inside his snowball, and I shall
play with you no longer. Excuse me--I am going for my evening
stroll.'
Though Knight had spoken jestingly, this incident and conversation
had caused him a sudden depression. Coming, rather singularly,
just after his discovery that Elfride had known what it was to
love warmly before she had known him, his mind dwelt upon the
subject, and the familiar pipe he smoked, whilst pacing up and
down the shrubbery-path, failed to be a solace.
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