ately after breakfast, and
not returned till night: had there been a lady anywhere within reach, of
any age between fifteen and forty-five, he would have sought revenge and
found employment in getting up, or trying to get up, a desperate
flirtation with her; but being, to my private satisfaction, entirely cut
off from both these sources of diversion, his sufferings were truly
deplorable. When he had done yawning over his paper and scribbling short
answers to his shorter letters, he spent the remainder of the morning and
the whole of the afternoon in fidgeting about from room to room, watching
the clouds, cursing the rain, alternately petting and teasing and abusing
his dogs, sometimes lounging on the sofa with a book that he could not
force himself to read, and very often fixedly gazing at me when he
thought I did not perceive it, with the vain hope of detecting some
traces of tears, or some tokens of remorseful anguish in my face. But I
managed to preserve an undisturbed though grave serenity throughout the
day. I was not really angry: I felt for him all the time, and longed to
be reconciled; but I determined he should make the first advances, or at
least show some signs of an humble and contrite spirit first; for, if I
began, it would only minister to his self-conceit, increase his
arrogance, and quite destroy the lesson I wanted to give him.

He made a long stay in the dining-room after dinner, and, I fear, took an
unusual quantity of wine, but not enough to loosen his tongue: for when
he came in and found me quietly occupied with my book, too busy to lift
my head on his entrance, he merely murmured an expression of suppressed
disapprobation, and, shutting the door with a bang, went and stretched
himself at full length on the sofa, and composed himself to sleep. But
his favourite cocker, Dash, that had been lying at my feet, took the
liberty of jumping upon him and beginning to lick his face. He struck it
off with a smart blow, and the poor dog squeaked and ran cowering back to
me. When he woke up, about half an hour after, he called it to him
again, but Dash only looked sheepish and wagged the tip of his tail. He
called again more sharply, but Dash only clung the closer to me, and
licked my hand, as if imploring protection. Enraged at this, his master
snatched up a heavy book and hurled it at his head. The poor dog set up
a piteous outcry, and ran to the door. I let him out, and then quietly
took up the boo