The equitable Twemlow felt that this sentiment, irrespective of the utterer, demanded his cordial assent. “You are very right, sir,” he rejoined with spirit. “You indicate the generous and manly course.”
“Glad to have your approbation,” returned Fledgeby. “It’s a coincidence, Mr. Twemlow;” here he descended from his perch, and sauntered towards him; “that the friends I am standing by today are the friends at whose house I met you! The Lammles. She’s a very taking and agreeable woman?”
Conscience smote the gentle Twemlow pale. “Yes,” he said. “She is.”
“And when she appealed to me this morning, to come and try what I could do to pacify their creditor, this Mr. Riah—that I certainly have gained some little influence with in transacting business for another friend, but nothing like so much as she supposes—and when a woman like that spoke to me as her dearest Mr. Fledgeby, and shed tears—why what could I do, you know?”
Twemlow gasped “Nothing but come.”
“Nothing but come. And so I came. But why,” said Fledgeby, putting his hands in his pockets and counterfeiting deep meditation, “why Riah should have started up, when I told him that the Lammles entreated him to hold over a Bill of Sale he has on all their effects; and why he should have cut out, saying he would be back directly; and why he should have left me here alone so long; I cannot understand.”
The chivalrous Twemlow, Knight of the Simple Heart, was not in a condition to offer any suggestion. He was too penitent, too remorseful. For the first time in his life he had done an underhanded action, and he had done wrong. He had secretly interposed against this confiding young man, for no better real reason than because the young man’s ways were not his ways.