Crying for the Light: or, Fifty Years Ago. Volume 2 of 3

‘Pardon me, ladies,’ said he, ‘you’re rather in my way. I have been insulted on this stage, and I’ll have my revenge.’

What more the Baronet would have said is lost to history. The stage is full of pit-fells. One gave way as he was speaking, and suddenly he sank out of sight. The ballet-girls shrieked, and then burst into a fit of laughter as they saw no harm was done. It is needless to say the Baronet was soon extricated from his unpleasant position, and made a rapid retreat. It does not do to be ridiculous, especially when you are in a towering rage, as we all know there is but a step between the sublime and the ridiculous.

‘I wish,’ he said to himself, as he drove home, ‘I had stopped at the club. I was a fool to go behind the scenes. I would like to be revenged on that Wentworth, but how? That’s the difficulty. The age of duelling is past, murder has ceased to be one of the fine arts, and I must grin and bear it.’

So far the Baronet was right. In the eye of the law, and at the bar of public opinion, the man who resorts to force is hopelessly in the wrong. We moderns, like the gods of Epicurus, approve

‘The depth, but not the tumult of the soul.’

Poor Rose was not a little upset. Her face was marble, but her heart was sad. Was this man to track her steps?

‘Rose, my beautiful,’ said her companion, when they were fairly out of the theatre, ‘we have loved each other long, and the sooner we get married the better. It is not safe for you to be alone.’

It was thus he spoke, nor did he speak in vain.

We hear much of woman’s rights in these days. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that her first right is a husband to look after her. It is not well for man or woman to be alone.