No such sense as that exists among the instincts of the
natural man. And no such feelings as these troubled Geoffrey Delamayn;
for Geoffrey Delamayn was the natural man.
When the idea of his scheme had sprung to life in his mind, the
novelty of it had startled him--the enormous daring of it, suddenly
self-revealed, had daunted him. The signs of emotion which he had
betrayed at the writing-table in the library were the signs of mere
mental perturbation, and of nothing more.
That first vivid impression past, the idea had made itself familiar
to him. He had become composed enough to see such difficulties as it
involved, and such consequences as it implied. These had fretted him
with a passing trouble; for these he plainly discerned. As for the
cruelty and the treachery of the thing he meditated doing--that
consideration never crossed the limits of his mental view. His position
toward the man whose life he had preserved was the position of a dog.
The "noble animal" who has saved you or me from drowning will fly at
your throat or mine, under certain conditions, ten minutes afterward.
Add to the dog's unreasoning instinct the calculating cunning of a man;
suppose yourself to be in a position to say of some trifling thing,
"Curious! at such and such a time I happened to pick up such and such
an object; and now it turns out to be of some use to me!"--and there you
have an index to the state of Geoffrey's feeling toward his friend when
he recalled the past or when he contemplated the future.
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