"Wot a witness you would be in a divorce case!" he continued enthusiastically. "You'd be in your helement!"
"I should—I should indeed!" exclaimed Mamzelle, with sudden excitement,—then as suddenly growing calm, she made a rapid gesture with her hands—"But there will be no divorce. Milord Winsleigh is a fool!"
Briggs appeared doubtful about this, and meditated for a long time over his third glass of port with the profound gravity of a philosopher.
"No, Mamzelle," he said at last, when he rose from the table to return to his duties upstairs—"No! there I must differ from you. I am a close observer. Wotever Winsleigh's faults,—and I do not deny that they are many,—he is a gentleman—that I must admit—and with hevery respect for you, Mamzelle—I can assure you he's no fool!"
And with these words Briggs betook himself to the library to arrange the reading-lamp and put the room in order for his master's return, and as he did so, he paused to look at a fine photograph of Lady Winsleigh that stood on the oak escritoire, opposite her husband's arm-chair.
"No," he muttered to himself. "Wotever he thinks of some goings-on, he ain't blind nor deaf—that's certain. And I'd stake my character and purfessional reputation on it—wotever he is, he's no fool!"
For once in his life, Briggs was right. He was generally wrong in his estimate of both persons and things—but it so happened on this particular occasion that he had formed a perfectly correct judgment.
[!-- H2 anchor --] CHAPTER XIX.
|
"Could you not drink her gaze like wine? Yet in its splendor swoon Into the silence languidly, As a tune into a tune?" |