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exasperation that fell just short of outright insolence.
    â€˜Begone with you, you besom,’ said Davenant, raising his hand as if to strike her. ‘And tell Lawrence to bring us some wine.’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ she said, laughing.
    There was a moment’s silence after she had gone. Davenant glanced out of the window, then turned and fixed me with a frank gaze. With a gravity I had not heard before, he said:
    â€˜Turner was my friend, Mr. Hartright. I’ll not do anything to injure him. If you want scandal, or gossip, you won’t get it here.’
    â€˜I give you my word,’ I said, ‘I am only interested in the truth.’
    â€˜I’ll tell you that, and gladly,’ he said. ‘But mind – I speak only of what I know.’ He paused; then, pulling two chairs from the wall, muttered: ‘And I could earnestly wish others would the same. Will you sit down?’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    â€˜I sometimes think you could knock on any door in London, and find someone there whose acquaintance with Turner extends, at most, to having once seen him get out of a cab – and who will cheerfully swear on that basis that he was the most crabbed, suspicious, miserable skinflint in creation.’
    I laughed; and he acknowledged it with a chuckle, and a curious little bounce of the head, as if I had complimented him on some soldierly skill. He went on:
    â€˜But I knew him for thirty years, and found him as kind and sociable as any man I ever met. You certainly couldn’t have asked for a tenderer friend.’ He sat down, tugging at the knees of the old-fashioned breeches beneath his smock. ‘I was sick as a dog, once – the doctors almost gave me up, and most of my family, too – but Turner’d come every day, to inquire after my health, and wish me better – even, I afterwards discovered, when I was too weak to receive him myself, and he got no more for his pains than two minutes’ conversation with my house-keeper,’He shook his head, and his eyes sparkled with tears, which he made no effort to hide.
    â€˜But what of his supposed moroseness, and meanness?’ I said.
    â€˜Why, as to that – you never saw such a fellow for merriment and hilarity, when he was easy, and among friends. Get up any little social or professional party, and he’d gladly participate, and pay his share – and sometimes, to my knowledge, he’d defray the whole expense himself, without others knowing it.’
    â€˜How then did he get such a reputation?’ I asked. I was, I confess, astonished: for this genial figure bore no relation to Travis’s crazed dwarf – or to the misanthropic miser I had heard of at the Academy, or to Lady Eastlake’s friendless recluse.
    â€˜Oh, I won’t deny there may have been reason enough, for those who judge a man by his appearance, and never trouble to look beneath the surface,’ said Davenant. ‘He lived most of his life with his old father, and much of the rest alone; and never learnt good domestic management – and thus could not receive his friends at his own table, as he told me on many occasions he would have liked. And he could be gruff, sometimes, too – especially if he thought you were trying improperly to find out his secrets, or interfere with his habits.’
    But why (I immediately thought) should a man be at so much pains to protect his privacy, unless he has something shameful to conceal? I kept the question to myself; but, as if he could look into my mind, Davenant said:
    â€˜I don’t know if you’ve a wife, Mr. Hartright – and, if so, how you live with her, and, if not, how you do without one – but you might well feel that it was no damned business of mine, unless you chose to tell me, and I should heartily agree with you.’
    The young manservant entered, carrying a tray with a decanter and two glasses. He stood trembling while Davenant made a