The reader has seen him with the words almost on his
tongue with which to offer his hand to his cousin, Lizzie Eustace, knowing
as he did so that his heart had been given to Lucy--knowing also that
Lucy's heart had been given to him! But he had not done it, and the better
humour had prevailed.
Within the figure and frame and clothes and cuticle, within the bones and
flesh of many of us, there is but one person, a man or woman, with a
preponderance either of good or evil, whose conduct in any emergency may
be predicted with some assurance of accuracy by any one knowing the man or
woman. Such persons are simple, single, and perhaps generally safe. They
walk along lines in accordance with certain fixed instincts or principles,
and are to-day as they were yesterday, and will be to-morrow as they are
to-day. Lady Eustace was such a person, and so was Lucy Morris. Opposite
in their characters as the two poles, they were each of them a simple
entity; and any doubt or error in judging of the future conduct of either
of them would come from insufficient knowledge of the woman. But there are
human beings who, though of necessity single in body, are dual in
character; in whose breasts not only is evil always fighting against good,
but to whom evil is sometimes horribly, hideously evil, but is sometimes
also not hideous at all.
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