No education can make a gentleman of a man who is not a gentleman at
heart, for whether his station in life be that of a ploughboy or an
Earl, the gentleman, like the poet, is born and not made. But it can
and does if he be of an observant nature, give him a certain insight
into the habits of thought and probable course of action of the
members of that class to which he outwardly, and by repute, belongs.
Such an insight Edward Cossey possessed, and at the present moment its
possession was troubling him very much. His trading instincts, the
desire bred in him to get something for his money, had led him to make
the bargain, but now that it was done his better judgment rose up
against it. For the truth may as well be told at once, although he
would as yet scarcely acknowledge it to himself, Edward Cossey was
already violently enamoured of Ida. He was by nature a passionate man,
and as it chanced she had proved the magnet with power to draw his
passion. But as the reader is aware, there existed another
complication in his life for which he was not perhaps entirely
responsible. When still quite a youth in mind, he had suddenly found
himself the object of the love of a beautiful and enthralling woman,
and had after a more or less severe struggle yielded to the
temptation, as, out of a book, many young men would have done.
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