midnight
At the same time , it moved him to a curious contempt of the youth . He had to conjure-up an image of the young man in person , to correct the sentiment : -- and it remained as a kind of bruise only half cured . Mr. Dudley Sowerby was not one of the youths whose presence would rectify such an abstract estimate of the genus pursuer . He now came frequently of an evening , to practise a duet for flutes with Victor ; -- a Mercadante , honeyed and flowing ; too honeyed to suit a style that , as Fenellan characterized it to Nataly , went through the music somewhat like an inquisitive tourist in a foreign town , conscientious to get to the end of the work of pleasure ; until the notes had become familiar , when it rather resembled a constable 's walk along the midnight streets into collision with a garlanded roysterer ; and the man of order and the man of passion , true to the measure though they were , seeming to dissent , almost to wrangle , in their different ways of winding out the melody , on to the last movement ; which was plainly a question between home to the strayed reveller 's quarters or off to the lockup . Victor was altogether the younger of the two . But his vehement accompaniment was a tutorship ; Mr. Sowerby improved ; it was admitted by Nesta and mademoiselle that he gained a show of feeling ; he had learnt that feeling was wanted . Passion , he had not a notion of : otherwise he would not be delaying ; the interview , dramatized by the father of the young bud of womanhood , would be taking place , and the entry into Lakelands calculable , for Nataly 's comfort , as under the aegis of the Cantor earldom .