The irritation which he felt, under these circumstances, was very great; and it was fortunate that Lieutenant Hargrave himself was not near at hand at the moment when Charles came to the above conclusion, as it is not improbable that he would speedily have resorted to some sharp measure for chastising what he conceived to be an unwarrantable breach of confidence. However, as we have said, it luckily so happened that Lieutenant Hargrave was not in the coach, and, even more, that there was nobody in it at all: for Charles Tyrrell was certainly in an irritable mood, and there are few men, let their dispositions be what they will, who are not disagreeable companions when such is the case. Thus he had plenty of opportunity to torment himself with his own fancies, and in the course of that journey he learned one of the most valuable secrets of the human heart, by long and solitary commune with his own in a state of excitement.
People of an eager and impetuous nature, when by chance they fall into the sin and folly of anger, are apt to declare, that other people or other things have put them in a passion, when, in truth--even if others have had any share in the business at all, which is not always the case--those angry people have been themselves the principals, and others only the accessories. It generally happens that others may throw down for us a little smouldering straw, but it is our own thoughts and imagination that toss it up into a flame.
Charles Tyrrell felt that such was the case in his own instance; that he had worked himself up into a fit of anger upon very unreasonable grounds. He detected the habit of doing so in his own mind, and he had sufficient firmness and resolution, as soon as he had detected that habit, vigorously to set about rooting it out.
As the first effort so to do, he resolved to think upon Lieutenant Hargrave no farther; gazing forth from the window, he revolved with pleasure upon a thousand other things; remembered that the shooting season had already commenced; laid out a plan for being absent from home the greater part of the day, either occupied in the healthful sports of the field, or passing the hours in the society of her he loved best; and devising with her schemes for future happiness, building on foundations laid by imagination with materials from the abundant storehouses of hope.