"What I have said already," answered my mistress. "The circumstances
have misled you."
I said nothing on my side. ROBINSON CRUSOE--God knows how--had got into
my muddled old head. If Sergeant Cuff had found himself, at that
moment, transported to a desert island, without a man Friday to keep him
company, or a ship to take him off--he would have found himself exactly
where I wished him to be! (Nota bene:--I am an average good Christian,
when you don't push my Christianity too far. And all the rest of
you--which is a great comfort--are, in this respect, much the same as I
am.) Sergeant Cuff went on: "Right or wrong, my lady," he said, "having drawn my conclusion, the
next thing to do was to put it to the test. I suggested to your ladyship
the examination of all the wardrobes in the house. It was a means of
finding the article of dress which had, in all probability, made the
smear; and it was a means of putting my conclusion to the test. How did
it turn out? Your ladyship consented; Mr. Blake consented; Mr. Ablewhite
consented. Miss Verinder alone stopped the whole proceeding by refusing
point-blank. That result satisfied me that my view was the right one.
If your ladyship and Mr. Betteredge persist in not agreeing with me,
you must be blind to what happened before you this very day. In your
hearing, I told the young lady that her leaving the house (as things
were then) would put an obstacle in the way of my recovering her jewel.
You saw yourselves that she drove off in the face of that statement. You
saw yourself that, so far from forgiving Mr. Blake for having done more
than all the rest of you to put the clue into my hands, she publicly
insulted Mr. Blake, on the steps of her mother's house. What do these
things mean? If Miss Verinder is not privy to the suppression of the
Diamond, what do these things mean?"
This time he looked my way. It was downright frightful to hear him
piling up proof after proof against Miss Rachel, and to know, while one
was longing to defend her, that there was no disputing the truth of what
he said. I am (thank God!) constitutionally superior to reason. This
enabled me to hold firm to my lady's view, which was my view also. This
roused my spirit, and made me put a bold face on it before Sergeant
Cuff. Profit, good friends, I beseech you, by my example. It will save
you from many troubles of the vexing sort. Cultivate a superiority to
reason, and see how you pare the claws of all the sensible people when
they try to scratch you for your own good!
Finding that I made no remark, and that my mistress made no remark,
Sergeant Cuff proceeded. Lord! how it did enrage me to notice that he
was not in the least put out by our silence!