He looked very unhappy, more so, Mrs. Edmonstone thought, than the actual offence required. 'You have only failed in part,' she said. 'It was a victory to keep down words.'
'The feeling is the thing,' said Guy; 'besides, I showed it plainly enough, without speaking.'
'It is not easy to take advice from one so little your elder,' began Mrs. Edmonstone, but he interrupted her. 'It was not the advice. That was very good; I--' but he spoke with an effort,--'I am obliged to him. It was--no, I won't say what,' he added, his eyes kindling, then changing in a moment to a sorrowful, resolute tone, 'Yes, but I will, and then I shall make myself thoroughly ashamed. It was his veiled assumption of superiority, his contempt for all I have been taught. Just as if he had not every right to despise me, with his talent and scholarship, after such egregious mistakes as I had made in the morning. I gave him little reason to think highly of my attainments; but let him slight me as much as he pleases, he must not slight those who taught me. It was not Mr. Potts' fault.'
Even the name could not spoil the spirited sound of the speech, and Mrs. Edmonstone was full of sympathy. 'You must remember,' she said, 'that in the eyes of a man brought up at public school, nothing compensates for the want of the regular classical education. I have no doubt it was very provoking.'
'I don't want to be excused, thank you,' said Guy. 'Oh I am grieved; for I thought the worst of my temper had been subdued. After all that has passed--all I felt--I thought it impossible. Is there no hope for--' He covered his face with his hands, then recovering and turning to Mrs. Edmonstone, he said, 'It is encroaching too much on your kindness to come here and trouble you with my confessions.'
'No, no, indeed,' said she, earnestly. 'Remember how we agreed that you should come to me like one of my own children. And, indeed, I do not see why you need grieve in this despairing way, for you almost overcame the fit of anger; and perhaps you were off your guard because the trial came in an unexpected way?'
'It did, it did,' he said, eagerly; 'I don't, mind being told point blank that I am a dunce, but that Mr. Potts--nay, by implication--my grandfather should be set at nought in that cool--But here I am again!' said he, checking himself in the midst of his vehemence; 'he did not mean that, of course. I have no one to blame but myself.'