He Knew He Was Right | Page 6

be told that he
would rather not have Colonel Osborne here! If you had seen his
manner and heard his words, you would not have been surprised that I
should feel it as I do. It was a gross insult and it was not the first.'
As she spoke the fire flashed from her eye, and the bright red colour of
her cheek told a tale of her anger which her sister well knew how to
read. Then there was a knock at the door, and they both knew that
Colonel Osborne was there. Louis Trevelyan, sitting in his library, also
knew of whose coming that knock gave notice.

CHAPTER II
COLONEL OSBORNE
It has been already said that Colonel Osborne was a bachelor, a man of
fortune, a member of Parliament, and one who carried his half century
of years lightly on his shoulders. It will only be necessary to say further
of him that he was a man popular with those among whom he lived, as
a politician, as a sportsman, and as a member of society. He could
speak well in the House, though he spoke but seldom, and it was
generally thought of him that he might have been something
considerable, had it not suited him better to be nothing at all. He was
supposed to be a Conservative, and generally voted with the

conservative party; but he could boast that he was altogether
independent, and on an occasion would take the trouble of proving
himself to be so. He was in possession of excellent health; had all that
the world could give; was fond of books, pictures, architecture, and
china; had various tastes, and the means of indulging them, and was
one of those few men on whom it seems that every pleasant thing has
been lavished. There was that little slur on his good name to which
allusion has been made; but those who knew Colonel Osborne best
were generally willing to declare that no harm was intended, and that
the evils which arose were always to be attributed to mistaken jealousy.
He had, his friends said, a free and pleasant way with women which
women like, a pleasant way of free friendship; that there was no more,
and that the harm which had come had always come from false
suspicion. But there were certain ladies about the town--good, motherly,
discreet women--who hated the name of Colonel Osborne, who would
not admit him within their doors, who would not bow to him in other
people's houses, who would always speak of him as a serpent, a hyena,
a kite, or a shark. Old Lady Milborough was one of these, a daughter of
a friend of hers having once admitted the serpent to her intimacy.
'Augustus Poole was wise enough to take his wife abroad,' said old
Lady Milborough, discussing about this time with a gossip of hers the
danger of Mrs Trevelyan's position, 'or there would have been a
breakup there; and yet there never was a better girl in the world than
Jane Marriott.'
The reader may be quite certain that Colonel Osborne had no
premeditated evil intention when he allowed himself to become the
intimate friend of his old friend's daughter. There was nothing fiendish
in his nature. He was not a man who boasted of his conquests. He was
not a ravening wolf going about seeking whom he might devour, and
determined to devour whatever might come in his way; but he liked
that which was pleasant; and of all pleasant things the company of a
pretty clever woman was to him the pleasantest. At this exact period of
his life no woman was so pleasantly pretty to him, and so agreeably
clever, as Mrs Trevelyan.

When Louis Trevelyan heard on the stairs the step of the dangerous
man, he got up from his chair as though he too would have gone into
the drawing-room, and it would perhaps have been well had he done so.
Could he have done this, and kept his temper with the man, he would
have paved the way for an easy reconciliation with his wife. But when
he reached the door of his room, and had placed his hand upon the lock,
he withdrew again. He told himself he withdrew because he would not
allow himself to be jealous; but in truth he did so because he knew he
could not have brought himself to be civil to the man he hated. So he
sat down, and took up his pen, and began to cudgel his brain about the
scientific article. He was intent on raising a dispute with some learned
pundit about the waves of sound, but he could think of no other sound
than that of the light steps of Colonel Osborne as he