on the breast, send the blood to his head, and set up in his heart a
derisive chorus? My gentleman could pay his money, and keep his footing
gallantly; but to be asked for a penny beyond what he possessed; to be
seen beggared, and to be claimed a debtor-aleck! Pride was the one
developed faculty of Evan's nature. The Fates who mould us, always work
from the main-spring. I will not say that the postillion stripped off
the mask for him, at that instant completely; but he gave him the first
true glimpse of his condition. From the vague sense of being an
impostor, Evan awoke to the clear fact that he was likewise a fool.

It was impossible for him to deny the man's claim, and he would not have
done it, if he could. Acceding tacitly, he squeezed the ends of his
purse in his pocket, and with a 'Let me see,' tried his waistcoat. Not
too impetuously; for he was careful of betraying the horrid emptiness
till he was certain that the powers who wait on gentlemen had utterly
forsaken him. They had not. He discovered a small coin, under ordinary
circumstances not contemptible; but he did not stay to reflect, and was
guilty of the error of offering it to the postillion.

The latter peered at it in the centre of his palm; gazed queerly in the
gentleman's face, and then lifting the spit of silver for the disdain of
his mistress, the moon, he drew a long breath of regret at the original
mistake he had committed, and said:

'That's what you're goin' to give me for my night's work?'

The powers who wait on gentlemen had only helped the pretending youth to
try him. A rejection of the demand would have been infinitely wiser and
better than this paltry compromise. The postillion would have fought it:
he would not have despised his fare.