"What right have I to be angry, even suppose she does come to care more
for him than for me? What can be more likely? He is more courtly,
amusing, better-looking, they say, and certainly cleverer; oh,
decidedly cleverer. He might as well make me his enemy as I make him
mine. No; dash it all! He has been like a brother to me ever since he
was so high, and I'll be d----d if there shan't be fair play between us
two, though I should go into the army through it. But I'll watch, and
see how things go."
So he watched at dinner and afterwards, but saw little to comfort him.
Saw one thing, nay, two things, most clearly. One was, that Cecil
Mayford was madly in love with Alice; and the other was, that poor
Cecil was madly jealous of Sam. He treated him differently to what he
had ever done before, as though on that evening he had first found his
rival. Nay, he became almost rude, so that once Jim looked suddenly up,
casting his shrewd blue eyes first on one and then on the other, as
though to ask what the matter was. But Sam only said to himself, "Let
him go on. Let him say what he will. He is beside himself now, and some
day he will be sorry.
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