A Radical apple had struck him on the left cheekbone as he performed his
triumphal drive through the town, and a slight disfigurement remained, to
which his hand was applied sympathetically at intervals, for the cheek-
bone was prominent in his countenance, and did not well bear enlargement.
And when a fortunate gentleman, desiring to be still more fortunate,
would display the winning amiability of his character, distension of one
cheek gives him an afflictingly false look of sweetness.

The bent of his mind, nevertheless, was to please Miss Halkett. He would
be smiling, and intimately smiling. Aware that she had a kind of pitiful
sentiment for Nevil, he smiled over Nevil--poor Nevil! 'I give you my
word, Miss Halkett, old Nevil was off his head yesterday. I daresay he
meant to be civil. I met him; I called out to him, "Good day, cousin,
I'm afraid you're beaten" and says he, "I fancy you've gained it, uncle."
He didn't know where he was; all abroad, poor boy. Uncle!--to me!'

Miss Halkett would have accepted the instance for a proof of Nevil's
distraction, had not Mr. Seymour Austin, who sat beside her, laughed and
said to her: 'I suppose "uncle" was a chance shot, but it's equal to a
poetic epithet in the light it casts on the story.' Then it seemed to
her that Nevil had been keenly quick, and Captain Baskelett's
impenetrability was a sign of his density. Her mood was to think Nevil
Beauchamp only too quick, too adventurous and restless: one that wrecked
brilliant gifts in a too general warfare; a lover of hazards, a hater of
laws. Her eyes flew over Captain Baskelett as she imagined Nevil
addressing him as uncle, and, to put aside a spirit of mockery rising
within her, she hinted a wish to hear Seymour Austin's opinion of Mr.
Tuckham. He condensed it in an interrogative tone: 'The other extreme?'
The Tory extreme of Radical Nevil Beauchamp. She assented. Mr. Tuckham
was at that moment prophesying the Torification of mankind; not as the