spoke again it was in his usual manner, but upon
another and perfectly indifferent subject.

Harry had taken no part in the discussion. Always languid, toward night
he generally felt especially disinclined to any bodily or mental
exertion. At such times there was nothing he liked so well as to lie on
his sofa and assist at a passage-of-arms between his wife and Keene,
encouraging either party occasionally with an approving smile, but
preserving a cautious and complete neutrality. On the present occasion
he had his own reasons for not being disappointed about the latter's
appreciation of Miss Tresilyan. Had he felt any such misgivings, they
would have vanished later in the evening.

The doctor was a stern man; but he must have been more than human to
have stood fast against the entreaties and cajolement with which his
patient backed up the petition, "to be allowed just one cigar before
going to roost." The prospect of this compensating weed had supported
poor Harry through the dullness and privations of many monotonous days.
As the appointed time drew nigh, he would freshen up visibly, just like
the camels when, staggering fetlock deep through the sand-wastes, they
scent the water or sight the clump of palms. Was there more in all this
than could be traced to the mere soothing influence of the nicotine and
flavor of the tobacco? Might not this one old habit still indulged have
been the only link that sensibly connected the invalid with those
pleasant days, when he enjoyed life so heartily, with so many cheery
comrades to keep him in countenance--when he would have laughed at the
idea of any thing short of a sabre-cut, a shot-wound, or a rattling fall
over an "oxer," bringing him down to that state of helpless dependence,
when our conception of womankind resolves itself into the ministering
angel? Harry certainly could not have told you if this were so; for an
inquiry into the precise nature of his sensations would have posed him
at any time quite as completely as a question in hydrostatics or plane
trigonometry. At any rate, the consumption of The Cigar was a very
important ceremony with him; not conducted in the thoughtless and
improvident spirit of men who smoke a dozen or so a day, but partaking
rather of the character of a sacrifice, at once festal and solemn. There
were times, as we have said before, when he would break out of bounds
recklessly; but upon such occasions he gave himself no time to reflect;
so there