When her task was done she went back to her sofa again; there she was
safe, for all Bruce's devotion to his ladye-love and stubbornness of
character could not give him courage enough to affront, at close
quarters, the mingled dislike and scornful humor that played round
Flora's lips, and gleamed in her eyes like summer lightning. He had to
retreat upon Lady Catharine, who, thinking him hardly used, in her
inextinguishable charity exerted herself to entertain him.
We were all glad when that first evening was over, and we got into the
smoking-room, whither Mr. Bruce was not entreated to follow. It was
always an augury of foul weather in Livingstone's temper when, instead
of the decent evening cigar, he smoked the short black _brule-gueule_,
loaded to the muzzle with cavendish. He sat thus for some minutes,
rolling out stormy puffs from under his mustache, and then broke out,
"I haven't an idea what to do with him" (there was no need to name the
object of his thoughts); "I made up my mind to risk a horse or two, for,
of course, he would have broken their knees; but when I offered him a
mount, he thanked me and said, 'He didn't hunt.' It would have got him
away from home, at all events.
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