ACT IV.

THE DUEL.


Tom Elliot was a very bad sample of the cavalier party. Trained in
camps, he had learned betimes to seek his happiness in wine, dice, loose
speech, and morals to match. As in France, the successors of the Sullys
and Du Plessis Mornays had become the coxcombs of the Fronde, and the
grandson of Bras-de-Fer was known as Bras-de-Laine, so the character and
conduct of men like Hyde, Ormonde, and Falkland furnished no example to
such as Villiers and Wilmot, whose only ideal of imitation was
scurrilous mimicry. Where the elder cavaliers had been proud to serve
their king, the rising generation was content if it could amuse him; and
with that Charles was satisfied.

Thus Elliot had learned that for such an escapade as his last he might
easily obtain forgiveness. It was not that Charles was, even in youth, a
sincere or warm friend. His easy good nature had its root in
self-indulgence. Clarendon, who knew him and his family _intus et in
cute_, has pointed this out in one of his best character sentences.
"They were too much inclined to love men at first sight," so writes the
faithful servant of the Stuarts. "They did not love the conversation of
men of more years than themselves. They did not love to deny, ... not
out of bounty or generosity, which was a flower that did never grow
naturally in the heart of either family--that of Stuart or the other of
Bourbon--and when they prevailed with themselves to make some pause
rather than to deny, importunity removed all resolution." [_Continuation
of Life_, p. 339, fol. ed.]