“But there is enough for both of you,” said Harry.

“There is no such word in the language as enough.  An estate can have but one owner, and Augustus is anxious to be owner here.  I do not blame him in the least.  Why should he desire to spare a father’s rights when that father showed himself so willing to sacrifice his?  Good-bye, Annesley; I am sorry you are going, for I like to have some honest fellow to talk to.  You are not to suppose that because I have done this thing I am indifferent to what men shall say of me.  I wish them to think me good, though I have chosen to run counter to the prejudices of the world.”

Then Harry escaped from the room, and spent the remaining evening with Augustus Scarborough and Septimus Jones.  The conversation was devoted chiefly to the partridges and horses; and was carried on by Septimus with severity toward Harry, and by Scarborough with an extreme civility which was the more galling of the two.

CHAPTER IX.

Augustus has his own doubts.

“That’s an impertinent young puppy,” said Septimus Jones as soon as the fly which was to carry Harry Annesley to the station had left the hall-door on the following morning.  It may be presumed that Mr. Jones would not thus have expressed himself unless his friend Augustus Scarborough had dropped certain words in conversation in regard to Harry to the same effect.  And it may be presumed also that Augustus would not have dropped such words without a purpose of letting his friend know that Harry was to be abused.  Augustus Scarborough had made up his mind, looking at the matter all round, that more was to be got by abusing Harry than by praising him.

“The young man has a good opinion of himself certainly.”

“He thinks himself to be a deal better than anybody else,” continued Jones, “whereas I for one don’t see it.  And he has a way with him of pretending to be quite equal to his companions, let them be who they may, which to me is odious.  He was down upon you and down upon your father.  Of course your father has made a most fraudulent attempt; but what the devil is it to him?” The other young man made no answer, but only smiled.  The opinion expressed by Mr. Jones as to Harry Annesley had only been a reflex of that felt by Augustus Scarborough.  But the reflex, as is always the case when the looking-glass is true, was correct.

Scarborough had known Harry Annesley for a long time, as time is counted in early youth, and had by degrees learned to hate him thoroughly.  He was a little the elder, and had at first thought to domineer over his friend.  But the friend had resisted, and had struggled manfully to achieve what he considered an equality in friendship.  “Now, Scarborough, you may as well take it once for all that I am not going to be talked down.  If you want to talk a fellow down you can go to Walker, Brown, or Green.