have four questions
that I asked myself often at the time, and ask myself still:--Was the
man moved by a particular sentiment against Mr. Henry? or by what he
thought to be his interest? or by a mere delight in cruelty such as cats
display and theologians tell us of the devil? or by what he would have
called love? My common opinion halts among the three first; but perhaps
there lay at the spring of his behaviour an element of all. As
thus:--Animosity to Mr. Henry would explain his hateful usage of him
when they were alone; the interests he came to serve would explain his
very different attitude before my lord; that and some spice of a design
of gallantry, his care to stand well with Mrs. Henry; and the pleasure
of malice for itself, the pains he was continually at to mingle and
oppose these lines of conduct.

Partly because I was a very open friend to my patron, partly because in
my letters to Paris I had often given myself some freedom of
remonstrance, I was included in his diabolical amusement. When I was
alone with him, he pursued me with sneers; before the family he used me
with the extreme of friendly condescension. This was not only painful in
itself; not only did it put me continually in the wrong; but there was
in it an element of insult indescribable. That he should thus leave me
out in his dissimulation, as though even my testimony were too
despicable to be considered, galled me to the blood. But what it was to
me is not worth notice. I make but memorandum of it here; and chiefly
for this reason, that it had one good result, and gave me the quicker
sense of Mr. Henry's martyrdom.

It was on him the burthen fell. How was he to respond to the public
advances of one who never lost a chance of gibing him in private? How
was he to smile back on the deceiver and the insulter? He was condemned
to seem ungracious. He was condemned to silence. Had he been less proud,
had he spoken, who would have credited the truth? The acted calumny had
done its work; my lord and Mrs. Henry were the daily witnesses of what
went on; they could have sworn in court that the Master was a model of
long-suffering good-nature, and Mr. Henry a pattern of jealousy and
thanklessness. And ugly enough as these must have appeared in any one,
they seemed tenfold uglier in Mr. Henry; for who could forget that the
Master lay in peril of his life, and that he had already lost his
mistress, his title, and his fortune?

"Henry, will you ride with me?