"Why, in nine cases out of ten the faults are grossly exaggerated and misrepresented, and I should try to prove that such is the fact; and for the rest,--why, no man is perfect."

"You shirk the question, though," said Lillyston; "for you have to make very tremendous allowance indeed for some of the very best of men."

As, for instance?

"As, for instance, king David."

"Oh, don't take Scripture instances," said Suton, an excellent fellow whom they all liked, though he took very different views of things from their own.

"Why not, in heaven's name?" said Kennedy; "if they suit, they are good because so thoroughly familiar."

"Yes, but somehow one judges them differently."

"I daresay you do,--in fact I know you do; but you've no business to. I maintain that even according to Moses, king David deserved a felon's death. Murder and adultery were crimes every bit as heinous then as they are now. Yet David, this most _human_ of heroes, was the man after G.o.d's own heart. Solve me the problem."

"Practically," said Lillyston; "I believe one follows a genuine instinct in _determining not_ to look at the spots, however wide or dark they are, upon the sun."

"And in accepting theoretically old Strabo's grand dictum, _ouch oion agathon genesthai poieeteen mee pzotezon geneethenta anoza agathon_.

Eh?"

"As Coleridge was so fond of doing," said Julian.

"Ay, he needed the theory," said Suton.

"Hush!" said Julian, "I can't stand any such Philadelphus hints about Coleridge. By the bye, Owen, you might have quoted a still more apt ill.u.s.tration from Seneca, who criticises Livy for saying 'Vir ingenii magni magis quam boni' with the remark, 'Non potest illud separari; aut _et_ bonum erit aut _nec_ magnum.'"

Mr Admer, who was one of the circle, chuckled inwardly at the discussion. "I was once," he said, "at a party where a lady sang one of Byron's Hebrew melodies. At the close of it a young clergyman sighed deeply, and with an air of intense self-satisfaction, observed, 'Ah! I was wondering where poor Byron is now!' What should you have all said to that?"

"Detesting Byron's personal character, I should have said that the very wonder was a piece of idle and meddling presumption," said Owen.

"And I should have answered that the Judge will do right," said Suton reverently.

"Or if he wanted a text, 'Who art thou that judgest another?'" said Lillyston contemptuously.

"And I," said Julian, should have said,--

"Let feeble hands iniquitously just, Rake up the relics of the sinful dust, Let Ignorance mock the pang it cannot heal, And Malice brand what Mercy would conceal;-- It matters not!"

"And I," said Kennedy, "should have been vehemently inclined to tweak the man's nose."

"But what did _you_ say, Mr Admer?" asked Lillyston.

"I answered a fool according to his folly. I threw up my eyes and said, 'Ah, where, indeed! What a good thing it is that you and I, sir, are not as that publican.'"

"I should think he skewered you with a glance, didn't he?" said Kennedy.

"No, he was going to _bore_ me with an argument, which I declined."

"But you've all cut the question: tell me now, supposing you had known king David, should you have thought worse of him, should you have been cool to him--in a word, should you have _cut_ him after his fall?"

"I think not--I mean, I shouldn't have _cut_ him," said Owen.

"And yet you would have treated so any ordinary friend."

"Not necessarily. But remember that the two best things happened to David which could possibly happen to a man who has committed a crime."

"Namely?"

"Speedy detection," said Lillyston.

"And prompt punishment," added Julian; "but for these there's no knowing what would have become of him."

Unsatisfactory as the discussion had been, yet those words rang hauntingly in Kennedy's ears; he could not forget them. During all those first days of happy travel they were with him; with him as they strolled down the gay and lighted Boulevards of Paris; with him beside the quaint fountains of Berne; and the green rushing of the Rhine at Basle; with him amid the scent of pine-cones, and under the dark green umbrage of forest boughs; with him when he caught his first glimpse of the everlasting mountains, and plunged into the clear brightness of the sapphire lake--the thought of speedy detection and prompt punishment.

It was no small pleasure to partake in Violet's happiness, and mark the ever fresh delight that lent such a bright look to Cyril's face; but before Kennedy in the midst of enjoyment, the memory of a dishonourable act started like a spectre, and threw a sudden shadow on his brow. He felt its presence when he saw the sun rise from Rigi; it stood by him amid the wreathing mists of Pilatus; it even checked his enthusiasm as they gazed together on the unequalled glories spread beneath the green summit of Monterone, and as their graceful boat made ripples on the moonlit waves of Orta and Lugans. In a word, the conviction of weakness was the only alloying influence to the pleasure of his tour, the one absinthe-drop that lent bitterness to the honeyed wine. It was not only the consciousness of the wrong act and its possible results, but horror at the instability of moral principle which it showed, and a deep fear lest the same weakness should prove a snare and a ruin to him in the course of future life.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

A DAY OF WONDER.

"Flowers are lovely. Love is flowerlike, Friendship is a sheltering tree; O the joys that came down showerlike With virtue, truth, and liberty, When I was young."--Coleridge.

"To-morrow, then, we are all to ascend the Schilthorn," said Mr Kennedy, as he bade good-night to the merry party a.s.sembled in the salle a manger of the chalet inn at Murrem.

"Or as high as we ladies can get," said Mrs Dudley.

"Oh, we'll get you up, aunt," said Kennedy; "if Julian and my father and I can't get you and Miss Home and Eva up, we're not worth much."

"To say nothing of _me_" said Cyril, putting his arms akimbo, with a look of immense importance.

"Breakfast, then, at five to-morrow morning, young people," said Mr Kennedy, retiring; and full of happy antic.i.p.ations they went off to bed.

Punctually at five they were all seated round the breakfast-table, eagerly discussing the prospects of the day.

"I say, _did_ any of you see the first sunbeam tip the Jungfrau this morning?" said Kennedy. "It looked like--like--what did it look like, Miss Home?"

"Like the golden rim of a crown of pearls," said Violet, smiling. "And did you see the morning star, shining above the orange-coloured line of morning light, over the hills behind us, Eva? What did that remind you of?"

"Oh, I can't _invent_ poetic similes," answered Eva. "I must take refuge in Wordsworth's--

"'Sweet as a star when only one Is shining in the sky.'"

"Yes," said Julian; "or Browning's--

"'One star--the chrysolite!'"

"Hum!" said Cyril, who had been standing impatiently at the door during the colloquy; "when you young ladies and people have done poetising, etcetera, the guide's quite ready."