CHAPTER XLVII
_DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS_
No one who has not experienced it can imagine the nervous disgust and
horror which such a spectacle as we had been forced in part to witness
leaves upon the mind of a young person of my peculiar temperament.
It affected ever after my involuntary estimate of the principal actors in
it. An exhibition of such thorough inferiority, accompanied by such a shock
to the feminine sense of elegance, is not forgotten by any woman. Captain
Oakley had been severely beaten by a smaller man. It was pitiable, but also
undignified; and Milly's anxieties about his teeth and nose, though in a
certain sense horrible, had also a painful suspicion of the absurd.
People say, on the other hand, that superior prowess, even in such
barbarous contests, inspires in our sex an interest akin to admiration. I
can positively say in my case it was quite the reverse. Dudley Ruthyn stood
lower than ever in my estimation; for though I feared him more, it was by
reason of these brutal and cold-blooded associations.
After this I lived in constant apprehension of being summoned to my uncle's
room, and being called on for an explanation of my meeting with Captain
Oakley, which, notwithstanding my perfect innocence, looked suspicious, but
no such inquisition resulted.
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