CHAPTER XVIII.
Why did she love him?
Curious fool, be still! Is human love the growth of human will?
To her he might be gentleness! LORD BYRON.
In three weeks from the time of his arrival, Captain Clifford was the most admired man in Bath.

It is true the gentlemen, who have a quicker tact as to the respectability of their own sex than women, might have looked a little shy upon him, had he not himself especially shunned appearing intrusive, and indeed rather avoided the society of men than courted it; so that after he had fought a duel with a baronet (the son of a shoemaker), who called him one Clifford, and had exhibited a flea-bitten horse, allowed to be the finest in Bath, he rose insensibly into a certain degree of respect with the one sex as well as popularity with the other.

But what always attracted and kept alive suspicion, was his intimacy with so peculiar and dashing a gentleman as Mr.Edward Pepper.

People could get over a certain frankness in Clifford's address, but the most lenient were astounded by the swagger of Long Ned.

Clifford, however, not insensible to the ridicule attached to his acquaintances, soon managed to pursue his occupations alone; nay, he took a lodging to himself, and left Long Ned and Augustus Tomlinson (the latter to operate as a check on the former) to the quiet enjoyment of the hairdresser's apartments.