XV.
A firm upholder of the customs and traditions of his rank, Baron Mundy had, along with the faults common to all young noblemen, some of their better qualities also. He always observed, for instance, a certain degree of gentleness and an unassuming behaviour towards those with whom he came in contact, together with the forbearing delicacy and consideration of the stronger towards the weaker, of which a true nobleman is never devoid.
Even if he had not loved Jenny deeply, he would never have allowed her and his son to be exposed to the miserable cares and hardships of everyday life. True he had serious reason to be offended, for Jenny had wounded him to the quick, upbraiding him with low and unworthy intentions; but, in spite of all that, his innate feeling of delicate regard to the weak kept him above the slough of meanness and baseness into which an everyday man, with less considerate feelings, might have fallen. While on his travels abroad, his mind was almost constantly in Prague with Jenny and her child, and there was hardly a moment in which he did not feel a longing desire to have his old connection with her renewed, and a hope that from the dark clouds now hanging over him
