She had got the better of me with a dexterity which I see now, but which I was not clever enough to appreciate at time.

In a burst of generosity, I entreated her to consider Trimley Deen as her house, and never to mention such a shocking subject as my authority again.
After this, need I say that the most amiable of women took me out in her carriage, and introduced me to some of the best society in England?
If I could only remember all the new friends to whom I made my bow, as well as the conversation in which we indulged, I might write a few pages here, interesting in a high degree to persons with well-balanced minds.
Unhappily, so far as my own impressions were concerned, the best society proved to be always the same society.

Every house that we entered was in the same beautiful order; every mistress of the house was dressed in the best taste; every master of the house had the same sensible remarks to make on conservative prospects at the coming election; every young gentleman wanted to know how my game preserves had been looked after in my absence; every young lady said: "How nice it must have been, Mr.
Roylake, to find yourself again at Trimley Deen." Has anybody ever suffered as I suffered, during that round of visits, under the desire to yawn and the effort to suppress it?
Is there any sympathetic soul who can understand me, when I say that I would have given a hundred pounds for a gag, and for the privilege of using it to stop my stepmother's pleasant chat in the carriage, following on our friends' pleasant chat in the drawing-room?
Finally, when we got home, and when Mrs.Roylake kindly promised me another round of visits, and more charming people in the neighborhood to see, will any good Christian forgive me, if I own that I took advantage of being alone to damn the neighborhood, and to feel relieved by it?
Now that I was no longer obliged to listen to polite strangers, my thoughts reverted to Cristel, and to the suspicions that she had roused in me.
Recovering its influence, in the interval that had passed, my better nature sharply reproached me.

I had presumed to blame Cristel, with nothing to justify me but my own perverted view of her motives.

How did I know that she had not opened that door, and gone to that side of the cottage, with a perfectly harmless object in view?
I was really anxious, if I could find the right way to do it, to make amends for an act of injustice of which I felt ashamed.