Pocock at
last could bear it no longer and asked John to dinner. Over a bottle of
Pommery Sec he confided his passion, and hinted that John was the obstacle
to his wooing. Harrington raised his eyebrows, smiled, wished Vancouver
all success, and left Newport the next day. If Vancouver had not disgusted
Sybil by his inquiries concerning her fortune, he would have married her,
and his feelings towards John would have been different. But to know that
Harrington had done him the favor of going away, knowing that he was about
to offer himself to Miss Brandon, and then to have failed in his suit was
more than the vanity of Mr. Pocock Vancouver could bear with any sort of
calmness, and the consequence was that he disliked John as much as he
disliked anybody or anything in the world. There is no resentment like the
resentment of wounded vanity, nor any self-reproach like that of a man who
has shown his weakness.
When Mrs. Wyndham told John the story of Vancouver's failure he could have
told her the rest, had he chosen, and she would certainly have been very
much amused.
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