Such were the two rival claimants for the hand of Harry Clavering.

Chapter XVIII

“Judge Not That Ye Be Not Judged”

A week had passed since the evening which Harry had spent in Bolton Street, and he had not again seen Lady Ongar.  He had professed to himself that his reason for not going there was the non-performance of the commission which Lady Ongar had given him with reference to Count Pateroff.  He had not yet succeeded in catching the Count, though he had twice asked for him in Mount Street and twice at the club in Pall Mall.  It appeared that the Count never went to Mount Street, and was very rarely seen at the club.  There was some other club which he frequented, and Harry did not know what club.  On both the occasions of Harry’s calling in Mount Street, the servant had asked him to go up and see madame; but he had declined to do so, pleading that he was hurried.  He was, however, driven to resolve that he must go direct to Sophie, as otherwise he could find no means of doing as he had promised.  She probably might put him on the scent of her brother.

But there had been another reason why Harry had not gone to Bolton Street, though he had not acknowledged it to himself.  He did not dare to trust himself with Lady Ongar.  He feared that he would be led on to betray himself and to betray Florence—­to throw himself at Julia’s feet and sacrifice his honesty, in spite of all his resolutions to the contrary.  He felt when there as the accustomed but repentant dram-drinker might feel, when, having resolved to abstain, he is called upon to sit with the full glass offered before his lips.  From such temptations as that the repentant dram-drinker knows that he must fly.  But though he did not go after the fire-water of Bolton Street, neither was he able to satisfy himself with the cool fountain of Onslow Crescent.  He was wretched at this time—­ill-satisfied with himself and others—­and was no fitting companion for Cecilia Burton.  The world, he thought, had used him ill.  He could have been true to Julia Brabazon when she was well-nigh penniless.  It was not for her money that he had regarded her.  Had he been now a free man—­free from those chains with which he had fettered himself at Stratton—­he would again have asked this woman for her love, in spite of her past treachery; but it would have been for her love, and not for her money, that he would have sought her.  Was it his fault that he had loved her, that she had been false to him, and that she had now come back and thrown herself before him? or had he been wrong because he had ventured to think that he loved another when Julia had deserted him?  Or could he help himself if he now found that his love in truth belonged to her whom he had known first?  The world had been very cruel to him, and he could not go to Onslow Crescent, and behave there prettily, hearing the praises of Florence with all the ardor of a discreet lover.