Court, with all its splendour and all its refinement, was little distinguished by self-denial in man, or self-restraint in woman. Amongst those of his own age and sphere, he was accustomed to hear conjugal fidelity spoken of as a prejudice not only superfluous but unrefined and in bad taste. The wife as a wife was to be considered a proper object of pursuit, the husband to be borne with as an encumbrance, but in right of his office habitually to be derided, out-witted, and despised. That a woman should care for the man to whom she had plighted her faith at the altar seemed an absurdity not to be contemplated; that a man should continue to love the girl he had chosen was a vulgarity to which no gentleman would willingly plead guilty. Such were the morals of the stage, such was the too common practice of real life. And George had laughed with the rest at the superstition of matrimony, had held its sanctity in derision, perhaps trifled with its vows en mousquetaire.
And now was the punishment overtaking him at last? Was the foundation of his happiness, like that of others, laid in sand, and the whole edifice crumbling to pieces in his very sight? It was hard, but he was a man, he thought, and he must bear it as best he might. As for the possibility that Cerise should actually love another, he dismissed such an idea almost ere it was formed. That was not the grievance, he told Emerald aloud, while he stood by the good horse on the solitary moor, it was that Cerise should not love him! He could scarcely believe it, and yet he could see she was unhappy, she for whose happiness he would sacrifice so willingly wealth, influence, position, life itself, everything but his honour. When he thought of the pale pining face, it seemed as if a knife was driven into his heart.
He sprang into his saddle, and once more urged his horse to a gallop. Once more the brown heathery acres flew back beneath his eyes, but Emerald began to think that all this velocity was a waste of power when unaccompanied by the music of the hounds, and stopped of his own accord to look for them within a bow-shot of the great north road where it led past the "Hamilton Arms."
Ordinary people do not usually talk to themselves, but I believe every man speaks aloud to his horse.
