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As for my Lord
Durrisdeer, he was sunk in parental partiality; it was not so much
love, which should be an active quality, as an apathy and torpor of
his other powers; and forgiveness (so to mis-apply a noble word)
flowed from him in sheer weakness, like the tears of senility.
Mrs. Henry's was a different case; and Heaven alone knows what he
found to say to her, or how he persuaded her from her contempt. It
is one of the worst things of sentiment, that the voice grows to be
more important than the words, and the speaker than that which is
spoken. But some excuse the Master must have found, or perhaps he
had even struck upon some art to wrest this exposure to his own
advantage; for after a time of coldness, it seemed as if things
went worse than ever between him and Mrs. Henry. They were then
constantly together. I would not be thought to cut one shadow of
blame, beyond what is due to a half-wilful blindness, on that
unfortunate lady; but I do think, in these last days, she was
playing very near the fire; and whether I be wrong or not in that,
one thing is sure and quite sufficient: Mr. Henry thought so. The
poor gentleman sat for days in my room, so great a picture of
distress that I could never venture to address him; yet it is to be
thought he found some comfort even in my presence and the knowledge
of my sympathy. There were times, too, when we talked, and a
strange manner of talk it was; there was never a person named, nor
an individual circumstance referred to; yet we had the same matter
in our minds, and we were each aware of it. It is a strange art
that can thus be practised; to talk for hours of a thing, and never
name nor yet so much as hint at it. And I remember I wondered if
it was by some such natural skill that the Master made love to Mrs.
Henry all day long (as he manifestly did), yet never startled her
into reserve.
To show how far affairs had gone with Mr. Henry, I will give some
words of his, uttered (as I have cause not to forget) upon the 26th
of February, 1757. It was unseasonable weather, a cast back into
Winter: windless, bitter cold, the world all white with rime, the
sky low and gray . the sea black and silent like a quarry-hole.
Mr. Henry sat close by the fire, and debated (as was now common
with him) whether "a man" should "do things," whether "interference
was wise," and the like general propositions, which each of us
particularly applied. I was by the window, looking out, when there
passed below me the Master, Mrs. Henry, and Miss Katharine, that
now constant trio. The child was running to and fro, delighted
with the frost; the Master spoke close in the lady's ear with what
seemed (even from so far) a devilish grace of insinuation; and she
on her part looked on the ground like a person lost in listening.
I broke out of my reserve.
"If I were you, Mr. Henry," said I, "I would deal openly with my
lord."
"Mackellar, Mackellar," said he, "you do not see the weakness of my
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