"I met Miss Acton as I was coming home," said Mr Lawrence, "and she said she had left you and her father talking about me.",
Thomas Pledge's mind was of a very common order. He had gathered from Eagle that the girl was to pretend a situation of acute distress, that when she was married her father should not hold her responsible for her elopement. Her words might have carried weight, and even conviction, but for the song and loud unmeaning laugh that closed them, in which Mr Pledge saw nothing but acting, not having experience of insanity in any shape or form. And shouting through the door, "I'll go and report to the Captain, ma'am, that you're locked up and want to get out," he turned, with the intention of making for the companion ladder, when he saw Mr Lawrence standing a few[Pg 277] paces abaft the steps, tall, stern, frowning, his face fierce with the strain, and indeed almost fury, of the attention with which he had bent his ears to catch the syllables of Lucy through the bulkhead.,
But as a rule men who act with excessive[Pg 291] imprudence are endowed with a quality of self-complacency which enables them to persuade themselves that "it's all right," and to this belief they cling until time and experiment prove that it's all wrong; whereupon their moral being falls to pieces, they become mean, cheap, and weak, and bewail their folly under the name of misfortune..
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