She made a comparison between the two men.  Her cousin Will was, she thought, the more generous, the more energetic perhaps by nature, the man of the higher gifts.  In person he was undoubtedly the superior.  He was full of noble qualities forgetful of self, industrious, full of resources, a very man of men, able to command, eager in doing work for others’ good and his own a man altogether uncontaminated by the coldness and selfishness of the outer world.  But he was rough, awkward, but indifferently educated, and with few of those tastes which to Clara Amedroz were delightful.  He could not read poetry to her, he could not tell her of what the world of literature was doing now or of what it had done in times past.  He knew nothing of the inner world of worlds which governs the world.  She doubted whether he could have told her who composed the existing cabinet, or have given the name of a single bishop beyond the see in which his own parish was situated.  But Captain Aylmer knew everybody, and had read everything, and understood, as though by instinct, all the movements of the world in which he lived.

But what mattered any such comparison?  Even though she should be able to prove to herself beyond the shadow of a doubt that her cousin Will was of the two the fitter to be loved the one more worthy of her heart no such proof could alter her position.  Love does not go by worth.  She did not love her cousin as she must love any man to whom she could give her hand and, alas! she did love that other man.

On this night I doubt whether Belton did slumber with that solidity of repose which was usual to him.  At any rate, before he came down in the morning he had found time for sufficient thought, and had brought himself to a resolution.  He would not give up the battle as lost.  To his thinking there was something weak and almost mean in abandoning any project which he had set before himself.  He had been awkward, and he exaggerated to himself his own awkwardness.  He had been hasty, and had gone about his task with inconsiderate precipitancy.  It might be that he had thus destroyed all his chance of success.  But, as he said to himself, ’he would never say die, as long as there was a puff of breath left in him.’  He would not mope, and hang down his head, and wear the willow.  Such a state of things would ill suit either the roughness or the readiness of his life.  No!  He would bear Like a man the disappointment which had on this occasion befallen him, and would return at Christmas and once more try his fortune.

At breakfast, therefore, the cloud had passed from his brow.  When he came in he found Clara alone in the room, and he simply shook hands with her after his ordinary fashion.  He said nothing of yesterday, and almost succeeded in looking as though yesterday had been in no wise memorable.  She was not so much at her ease, but she also received some comfort from his demeanour.  Mr Amedroz came down almost immediately, and Belton soon took an opportunity of saying that he would be back at Christmas if Mr Amedroz would receive him.