comparison between his own wasted frame and the other's splendid
physique; it heightened the feeling of antagonism which possessed
him in advance, and provoked the haughtiness he had resolved to
guard against. The very lineaments of the men foretold mutual
antipathy. Hubert's extreme delicacy of feature was the outward
expression of a character so compact of subtleties and refinements,
of high prejudice and jealous sensibility, of spiritual egoism and
all-pervading fastidiousness, that it was impossible for him not to
regard with repugnance a man who represented the combative
principle, even the triumph, of the uncultured classes. He was no
hidebound aristocrat; the liberal tendencies of his intellect led
him to scorn the pageantry of long-descended fools as strongly as he
did the blind image-breaking of the mob; but in a case of personal
relations temperament carried it over judgment in a very high-handed
way. Youth and disappointment weighed in the scale of unreason.
Mutimer, on the other hand, though fortune helped him to
forbearance, saw, or believed he saw, the very essence of all he
most hated in this proud-eyed representative of a county family. His
own rough-sculptured comeliness corresponded to the vigour and
practicality and zeal of a nature which cared nothing for form and
all for substance; the essentials of life were to him the only
things in life, instead of, as to Hubert Eldon, the mere brute
foundation of an artistic super structure. Richard read clearly
enough the sentiments with which his visitor approached him; who
that is the object of contempt does not readily perceive it? His way
of revenging himself was to emphasise a tone of good fellowship, to
make it evident how well he could afford to neglect privileged
insolence. In his heart he triumphed over the disinherited
aristocrat; outwardly he was civil, even friendly.