He too had been almost angry, only by
nature he was cool and even good-tempered. To find Hester, the moment
she came back to London, and now in the near prospect of marriage with
himself, yielding afresh to a diseased fancy of doing good; to come upon
her in the street of a low neighbourhood, followed by a low crowd,
supported and championed by a low fellow--well, it was not agreeable!
His high breeding made him mind it less than a middle-class man of like
character would have done; but with his cold dislike to all that was
poor and miserable, he could not fail to find it annoying, and had
entered the house intending to exact a promise for the future--not the
future after marriage, for a change then went without saying.
But when he had heard her trouble, and saw how deeply it affected her,
he knew this was not the time to say what he had meant; and there was
the less occasion now that he was near to take care of her!
He had risen to go, and was about to take a loving farewell, when
Hester, suddenly remembering, drew back, with almost a guilty look.
"Oh, Gartley!" she said, "I thought not to have let you come near me!
Not that _I_ am afraid of anything! But you came upon me so
unexpectedly! It is all very well for one's self, but one ought to heed
what other people may think!"
"What _can_ you mean, Hester?" exclaimed Gartley, and would have
laid his hand on her arm, but again she drew back.
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