biographer, I grieve to confess, that he became, though a punctiliously
honest, a wise and fortunate gamester; and thus he eked out betimes the
slender profits of a subaltern's pay.

This was the first great deterioration in Percy's mind--a mind which ought
to have made him a very different being from what he became, but which no
vice, no evil example, could ever entirely pervert.




CHAPTER VII.

SAVILLE EXCUSED FOR HAVING HUMAN AFFECTIONS.--GODOLPHIN SEES ONE WHOM HE
NEVER SEES AGAIN.--THE NEW ACTRESS.

Saville was deemed the consummate man of the world--wise and heartless.
How came he to take such gratuitous pains with the boy Godolphin? In the
first place, Saville had no legitimate children; Godolphin was his
relation; in the second place it may be observed that hackneyed and sated
men of the world are fond of the young, in whom they recognise
something--a better something belonging to themselves. In Godolphin's
gentleness and courage, Saville thought he saw the mirror of his own
crusted urbanity and scheming perseverance; in Godolphin's fine
imagination and subtle intellect he beheld his own cunning and hypocrisy.
The boy's popularity flattered him; the boy's conversation amused. No man
is so heartless but that he is capable of strong likings, when they do not
put him much out of his way; it was this sort of liking that Saville had
for Godolphin. Besides, there was yet another reason for attachment,
which might at first seem too delicate to actuate the refined voluptuary;