ONE:"Directly Bruce told his story," he went on presently, "I knew exactly what had happened. I knew all about the motor car also. Then it was time for me to act. I was using the house as a kind of trap for you one night when Mr. Charlton appeared. He was good enough to pardon the liberty we had taken and to tell us his story. Then I began to see my way pretty clear. It was I who caused you to be informed about the missing diamonds being still in the well. I had found out that you were in desperate need of money. Isidore let me into that, also through him I got to know Maitrank. You came for the diamonds, but you did not get the real ones, for the simple reason that I had already been down the well and got them for myself. They were simply and plainly set, so that I had no trouble in getting paste imitations.
CHAPTER XLVI. HETTY LEARNS SOMETHING.Looks bad, this-here, dont it? He grinned.Epicureanism allotted a far larger place to friendship than to all the other social virtues put together; and the disciple was taught to look to it not only for the satisfaction of his altruistic impulses, but for the crowning happiness of his life. The egoistic basis of the system was, indeed, made sufficiently prominent even here; utility and pleasure, which Aristotle had excluded from the notion of true friendship, being declared its proper ends. All the conditions of a disinterested attachment were, however, brought back by a circuitous process. It was argued that the full value of friendship could not be reaped except by those whose affection for each other went to the extent of complete self-devotion; but the Epicureans were less successful in showing how this happy condition could be realised consistently with the study of his own interest by each individual. As a matter of fact, it was realised; and the members of this school became remarkable, above all others, for the tenderness and fidelity of their personal attachments. But we may suspect that formal precepts had little to do with the result. Estrangement from the popular creed, when still uncommon, has always a tendency to draw the dissidents together;151 and where other ties, whether religious, domestic, or patriotic, are neglected, the ordinary instincts of human nature are likely to show themselves with all the more energy in the only remaining form of union. Moreover, the cheerful, contented, abstemious, unambitious characters who would be the most readily75 attracted to the Epicurean brotherhood supplied the very materials that most readily unite in placid and enduring attachments. A tolerably strict standard of orthodoxy provided against theoretical dissensions: nor were the new converts likely to possess either daring or originality enough to excite controversies where they did not already exist."Not yet," he said. "I am not going to throw this chance away. I came here to see Mr. Isidore, and I elected to wait. It was one of the best hour's work I ever did. When you leave here it will be for a gaol."
路见不平Eason吼
