CHAPTER XLI
THE REV. DR. MIDDLETON, CLARA, AND SIR WILLOUGHBY
When Master Crossjay tumbled down the stairs, Laetitia was in Clara'sroom, speculating on the various mishaps which might have befallen thatbattered youngster; and Clara listened anxiously after Laetitia had runout, until she heard Sir Willoughby's voice; which in some waysatisfied her that the boy was not in the house.
She waited, expecting Miss Dale to return; then undressed, went to bed,tried to sleep. She was tired of strife. Strange thoughts for a younghead shot through her: as, that it is possible for the sense of duty tocounteract distaste; and that one may live a life apart from one'sadmirations and dislikes: she owned the singular strength of SirWilloughby in outwearying: she asked herself how much she had gained bystruggling:--every effort seemed to expend her spirit's force, andrendered her less able to get the clear vision of her prospects, asthough it had sunk her deeper: the contrary of her intention to makeeach further step confirm her liberty. Looking back, she marvelled atthe things she had done. Looking round, how ineffectual they appeared!She had still the great scene of positive rebellion to go through withher father.
The anticipation of that was the cause of her extreme discouragement.He had not spoken to her since he became aware of her attempted flight:but the scene was coming; and besides the wish not to inflict it onhim, as well as to escape it herself, the girl's peculiar unhappinesslay in her knowledge that they were alienated and stood opposed, owingto one among the more perplexing masculine weaknesses, which she couldnot hint at, dared barely think of, and would not name in hermeditations. Diverting to other subjects, she allowed herself toexclaim, "Wine, wine!" in renewed wonder of what there could be in wineto entrap venerable men and obscure their judgements. She was too youngto consider that her being very much in the wrong gave all theimportance to the cordial glass in a venerable gentleman's appreciationof his dues. Why should he fly from a priceless wine to gratify thecaprices of a fantastical child guilty of seeking to commit a breach offaith? He harped on those words. Her fault was grave. No doubt the winecoloured it to him, as a drop or two will do in any cup: still herfault was grave.
She was too young for such considerations. She was ready to expatiateon the gravity of her fault, so long as the humiliation assisted to herdisentanglement: her snared nature in the toils would not permit her toreflect on it further. She had never accurately perceived it: for thereason perhaps that Willoughby had not been moving in his appeals: but,admitting the charge of waywardness, she had come to terms withconscience, upon the understanding that she was to perceive it andregret it and do penance for it by-and-by:--by renouncing marriagealtogether? How light a penance!
In the morning, she went to Laetitia's room, knocked, and had noanswer.
She was informed at the breakfast-table of Miss Dale's departure. Theladies Eleanor and Isabel feared it to be a case of urgency at thecottage. No one had seen Vernon, and Clara requested Colonel De Crayeto walk over to the cottage for news of Crossjay. He accepted thecommission, simply to obey and be in her service: assuring her,however, that there was no need to be disturbed about the boy. He wouldhave told her more, had not Dr. Middleton led her out.
Sir Willoughby marked a lapse of ten minutes by his watch. Hisexcellent aunts had ventured a comment on his appearance thatfrightened him lest he himself should be the person to betray hisastounding discomfiture. He regarded his conduct as an act of madness,and Laetitia's as no less that of a madwoman--happily mad! Very happilymad indeed! Her rejection of his ridiculously generous proposal seemedto show an intervening hand in his favour, that sent her distraught atthe right moment. He entirely trusted her to be discreet; but she was amiserable creature, who had lost the one last chance offered her byProvidence, and furnished him with a signal instance of the mediocrityof woman's love.
Time was flying. In a little while Mrs. Mountstuart would arrive. Hecould not fence her without a design in his head; he was destitute ofan armoury if he had no scheme: he racked the brain only to succeed inrousing phantasmal vapours. Her infernal "Twice!" would cease now toapply to Laetitia; it would be an echo of Lady Busshe. Nay, were all inthe secret, Thrice jilted! might become the universal roar. And this,he reflected bitterly, of a man whom nothing but duty to his line hadarrested from being the most mischievous of his class with women! Suchis our reward for uprightness!
At the expiration of fifteen minutes by his watch, he struck a knuckleon the library door. Dr. Middleton held it open to him.
"You are disengaged, sir?"
"The sermon is upon the paragraph which is toned to awaken the clerk,"replied the Rev. Doctor.
Clara was weeping.
Sir Willoughby drew near her solicitously.
Dr Middleton's mane of silvery hair was in a state bearing witness tothe vehemence of the sermon, and Willoughby said: "I hope, sir, youhave not made too much of a trifle."
"I believe, sir, that I have produced an effect, and that was the pointin contemplation."
"Clara! my dear Clara!" Willoughby touched her.
"She sincerely repents her conduct, I may inform you," said Dr.Middleton.
"My love!" Willoughby whispered. "We have had a misunderstanding. I amat a loss to discover where I have been guilty, but I take the blame,all the blame. I implore you not to weep. Do me the favour to look atme. I would not have had you subjected to any interrogation whatever."
"You are not to blame," Clara said on a sob.
"Undoubtedly Willoughby is not to blame. It was not he who was bound ona runaway errand in flagrant breach of duty and decorum, nor he whoinflicted a catarrh on a brother of my craft and cloth," said herfather.
"The clerk, sir, has pronounced Amen," observed Willoughby.
"And no man is happier to hear an ejaculation that he has laboured forwith so much sweat of his brow than the parson, I can assure you," Dr.Middleton mildly groaned. "I have notions of the trouble of Abraham. Asermon of that description is an immolation of the parent, however itmay go with the child."
Willoughby soothed his Clara.
"I wish I had been here to share it. I might have saved you some tears.I may have been hasty in our little dissensions. I will acknowledgethat I have been. My temper is often irascible."
"And so is mine!" exclaimed Dr. Middleton. "And yet I am not aware thatI made the worse husband for it. Nor do I rightly comprehend how aprobably justly excitable temper can stand for a plea in mitigation ofan attempt at an outrageous breach of faith."
"The sermon is over, sir."
"Reverberations!" the Rev. Doctor waved his arm placably. "Take it forthunder heard remote."
"Your hand, my love," Willoughby murmured.
The hand was not put forth.
Dr. Middleton remarked the fact. He walked to the window, andperceiving the pair in the same position when he faced about, hedelivered a cough of admonition.
"It is cruel!" said Clara.
"That the owner of your hand should petition you for it?" inquired herfather.
She sought refuge in a fit of tears.
Willoughby bent above her, mute.
"Is a scene that is hardly conceivable as a parent's obligation once ina lustrum, to be repeated within the half hour?" shouted her father.
She drew up her shoulders and shook; let them fall and dropped herhead.
"My dearest! your hand!" fluted Willoughby.
The hand surrendered; it was much like the icicle of a sudden thaw.
Willoughby squeezed it to his ribs.
Dr. Middleton marched up and down the room with his arms locked behindhim. The silence between the young people seemed to denounce hispresence.
He said, cordially: "Old Hiems has but to withdraw for buds to burst.'Jam ver egelidos refert tepores.' The equinoctial fury departs. Iwill leave you for a term."
Clara and Willoughby simultaneously raised their faces with opposingexpressions.
"My girl!" Her father stood by her, laying gentle hand on her.
"Yes, papa, I
will come out to you," she replied to his apology for therather heavy weight of his vocabulary, and smiled.
"No, sir, I beg you will remain," said Willoughby.
"I keep you frost-bound."
Clara did not deny it.
Willoughby emphatically did.
Then which of them was the more lover-like? Dr. Middleton would for themoment have supposed his daughter.
Clara said: "Shall you be on the lawn, papa?"
Willoughby interposed. "Stay, sir; give us your blessing."
"That you have." Dr. Middleton hastily motioned the paternal ceremonyin outline.
"A few minutes, papa," said Clara.
"Will she name the day?" came eagerly from Willoughby.
"I cannot!" Clara cried in extremity.
"The day is important on its arrival," said her father; "but Iapprehend the decision to be of the chief importance at present. Firstprime your piece of artillery, my friend."
"The decision is taken, sir."
"Then I will be out of the way of the firing. Hit what day you please."
Clara checked herself on an impetuous exclamation. It was done that herfather might not be detained.
Her astute self-compression sharpened Willoughby as much as itmortified and terrified him. He understood how he would stand in aninstant were Dr. Middleton absent. Her father was the tribunal shedreaded, and affairs must be settled and made irrevocable while he waswith them. To sting the blood of the girl, he called her his darling,and half enwound her, shadowing forth a salute.
She strung her body to submit, seeing her father take it as a signalfor his immediate retirement.
Willoughby was upon him before he reached the door.
"Hear us out, sir. Do not go. Stay, at my entreaty. I fear we have notcome to a perfect reconcilement."
"If that is your opinion," said Clara, "it is good reason for notdistressing my father."
"Dr Middleton, I love your daughter. I wooed her and won her; I hadyour consent to our union, and I was the happiest of mankind. In someway, since her coming to my house, I know not how--she will not tellme, or cannot--I offended. One may be innocent and offend. I have neverpretended to impeccability, which is an admission that I may verynaturally offend. My appeal to her is for an explanation or for pardon.I obtain neither. Had our positions been reversed, oh, not for any realoffence--not for the worst that can be imagined--I think not--I hopenot--could I have been tempted to propose the dissolution of ourengagement. To love is to love, with me; an engagement a solemn bond.With all my errors I have that merit of utter fidelity--to the worldlaughable! I confess to a multitude of errors; I have that singlemerit, and am not the more estimable in your daughter's eyes on accountof it, I fear. In plain words, I am, I do not doubt, one of the foolsamong men; of the description of human dog commonly known asfaithful--whose destiny is that of a tribe. A man who cries out when heis hurt is absurd, and I am not asking for sympathy. Call me luckless.But I abhor a breach of faith. A broken pledge is hateful to me. Ishould regard it myself as a form of suicide. There are principleswhich civilized men must contend for. Our social fabric is based onthem. As my word stands for me, I hold others to theirs. If that is notdone, the world is more or less a carnival of counterfeits. In thisinstance--Ah! Clara, my love! and you have principles: you haveinherited, you have been indoctrinated with them: have I, then, in myignorance, offended past penitence, that you, of all women? . . . Andwithout being able to name my sin!--Not only for what I lose by it, butin the abstract, judicially--apart from the sentiment of personalinterest, grief, pain, and the possibility of my having to endure thatwhich no temptation would induce me to commit:--judicially;--I fear,sir, I am a poor forensic orator . . ."
"The situation, sir, does not demand a Cicero: proceed," said Dr.Middleton, balked in his approving nods at the right true thingsdelivered.
"Judicially, I am bold to say, though it may appear a presumption inone suffering acutely, I abhor a breach of faith."
Dr. Middleton brought his nod down low upon the phrase he hadanticipated. "And I," said he, "personally, and presently, abhor abreach of faith. Judicially? Judicially to examine, judicially tocondemn: but does the judicial mind detest? I think, sir, we are not onthe bench when we say that we abhor: we have unseated ourselves. Yetour abhorrence of bad conduct is very certain. You would signify,impersonally: which suffices for this exposition of your feelings."
He peered at the gentleman under his brows, and resumed:
"She has had it, Willoughby; she has had it in plain Saxon and inuncompromising Olympian. There is, I conceive, no necessity to revertto it."
"Pardon me, sir, but I am still unforgiven."
"You must babble out the rest between you. I am about as much at homeas a turkey with a pair of pigeons."
"Leave us, father," said Clara.
"First join our hands, and let me give you that title, sir."
"Reach the good man your hand, my girl; forthright, from the shoulder,like a brave boxer. Humour a lover. He asks for his own."
"It is more than I can do, father."
"How, it is more than you can do? You are engaged to him, a plightedwoman."
"I do not wish to marry."
"The apology is inadequate."
"I am unworthy. . ."
"Chatter! chatter!"
"I beg him to release me."
"Lunacy!"
"I have no love to give him."
"Have you gone back to your cradle, Clara Middleton?"
"Oh, leave us, dear father!"
"My offence, Clara, my offence! What is it? Will you only name it?"
"Father, will you leave us? We can better speak together . . ."
"We have spoken, Clara, how often!" Willoughby resumed, "with whatresult?--that you loved me, that you have ceased to love me: that yourheart was mine, that you have withdrawn it, plucked it from me: thatyou request me to consent to a sacrifice involving my reputation, mylife. And what have I done? I am the same, unchangeable. I loved andlove you: my heart was yours, and is, and will be yours forever. Youare my affianced--that is, my wife. What have I done?"
"It is indeed useless," Clara sighed.
"Not useless, my girl, that you should inform this gentleman, youraffianced husband, of the ground of the objection you conceived againsthim."
"I cannot say."
"Do you know?"
"If I could name it, I could hope to overcome it."
Dr. Middleton addressed Sir Willoughby.
"I verily believe we are directing the girl to dissect a caprice. Suchthings are seen large by these young people, but as they have neitherorgans, nor arteries, nor brains, nor membranes, dissection andinspection will be alike profitlessly practised. Your inquiry isnatural for a lover, whose passion to enter into relations with the sexis ordinarily in proportion to his ignorance of the stuff composingthem. At a particular age they traffic in whims: which are, I presume,the spiritual of hysterics; and are indubitably preferable, so long asthey are not pushed too far. Examples are not wanting to prove that aflighty initiative on the part of the male is a handsome corrective. Inthat case, we should probably have had the roof off the house, and thegirl now at your feet. Ha!"
"Despise me, father. I am punished for ever thinking myself thesuperior of any woman," said Clara.
"Your hand out to him, my dear, since he is for a formalreconciliation; and I can't wonder."
"Father! I have said I do not . . . I have said I cannot . . ."
"By the most merciful! what? what? the name for it, words for it!"
"Do not frown on me, father. I wish him happiness. I cannot marry him.I do not love him."
"You will remember that you informed me aforetime that you did lovehim."
"I was ignorant . . . I did not know myself. I wish him to be happy."
"You deny him the happiness you wish him!"
"It would not be for his happiness were I to wed him."
"Oh!" burst from Willoughby.
"You hear him. He
rejects your prediction, Clara Middleton." She caughther clasped hands up to her throat. "Wretched, wretched, both!"
"And you have not a word against him, miserable girl."
"Miserable! I am."
"It is the cry of an animal!"
"Yes, father."
"You feel like one? Your behaviour is of that shape. You have not aword?"
"Against myself, not against him."
"And I, when you speak so generously, am to yield you? give you up?"cried Willoughby. "Ah! my love, my Clara, impose what you will on me;not that. It is too much for man. It is, I swear it, beyond mystrength."
"Pursue, continue the strain; 'tis in the right key," said Dr.Middleton, departing.
Willoughby wheeled and waylaid him with a bound.
"Plead for me, sir; you are all-powerful. Let her be mine, she shall behappy, or I will perish for it. I will call it on my head.--Impossible!I cannot lose her. Lose you, my love? it would be to strip myself ofevery blessing of body and soul. It would be to deny myself possessionof grace, beauty, wit, all the incomparable charms of loveliness ofmind and person in woman, and plant myself in a desert. You are mymate, the sum of everything I call mine. Clara, I should be less thanman to submit to such a loss. Consent to it? But I love you! I worshipyou! How can I consent to lose you . . . ?"
He saw the eyes of the desperately wily young woman slink sideways. Dr.Middleton was pacing at ever shorter lengths closer by the door.
"You hate me?" Willoughby sunk his voice.
"If it should turn to hate!" she murmured.
"Hatred of your husband?"
"I could not promise," she murmured, more softly in her wiliness.
"Hatred?" he cried aloud, and Dr. Middleton stopped in his walk andflung up his head: "Hatred of your husband? of the man you have vowedto love and honour? Oh, no! Once mine, it is not to be feared. I trustto my knowledge of your nature; I trust in your blood, I trust in youreducation. Had I nothing else to inspire confidence, I could trust inyour eyes. And, Clara, take the confession: I would rather be hatedthan lose you. For if I lose you, you are in another world, out of thisone holding me in its death-like cold; but if you hate me we aretogether, we are still together. Any alliance, any, in preference toseparation!"
Clara listened with critical ear. His language and tone were new; andcomprehending that they were in part addressed to her father, whosephrase: "A breach of faith": he had so cunningly used, disdain of theactor prompted the extreme blunder of her saying--frigidly though shesaid it:
"You have not talked to me in this way before."
"Finally," remarked her father, summing up the situation to settle itfrom that little speech, "he talks to you in this way now; and you areunder my injunction to stretch your hand out to him for a symbol ofunion, or to state your objection to that course. He, by youradmission, is at the terminus, and there, failing the why not, must youjoin him."
Her head whirled. She had been severely flagellated and weakenedprevious to Willoughby's entrance. Language to express her peculiarrepulsion eluded her. She formed the words, and perceived that theywould not stand to bear a breath from her father. She perceived toothat Willoughby was as ready with his agony of supplication as she withhers. If she had tears for a resource, he had gestures quite aseloquent; and a cry of her loathing of the union would fetch acountervailing torrent of the man's love.--What could she say? he isan Egoist? The epithet has no meaning in such a scene. Invent! shriekedthe hundred-voiced instinct of dislike within her, and alone with herfather, alone with Willoughby, she could have invented some equivalent,to do her heart justice for the injury it sustained in her being unableto name the true and immense objection: but the pair in presenceparalyzed her. She dramatized them each springing forward by turns,with crushing rejoinders. The activity of her mind revelled in givingthem a tongue, but would not do it for herself. Then ensued theinevitable consequence of an incapacity to speak at the heart's urgentdictate: heart and mind became divided. One throbbed hotly, the otherhung aloof, and mentally, while the sick inarticulate heart keptclamouring, she answered it with all that she imagined for those twomen to say. And she dropped poison on it to still its reproaches:bidding herself remember her fatal postponements in order to preservethe seeming of consistency before her father; calling it hypocrite;asking herself, what was she! who loved her! And thus beating down herheart, she completed the mischief with a piercing view of thefoundation of her father's advocacy of Willoughby, and more lamentablyasked herself what her value was, if she stood bereft of respect forher father.
Reason, on the other hand, was animated by her better nature to pleadhis case against her: she clung to her respect for him, and feltherself drowning with it: and she echoed Willoughby consciously,doubling her horror with the consciousness, in crying out on a worldwhere the most sacred feelings are subject to such lapses. It doubledher horror, that she should echo the man: but it proved that she was nobetter than be: only some years younger. Those years would soon beoutlived: after which, he and she would be of a pattern. She wasunloved: she did no harm to any one by keeping her word to this man;she had pledged it, and it would be a breach of faith not to keep it.No one loved her. Behold the quality of her father's love! To give himhappiness was now the principal aim for her, her own happiness beingdecently buried; and here he was happy: why should she be the cause ofhis going and losing the poor pleasure he so much enjoyed?
The idea of her devotedness flattered her feebleness. She betrayedsigns of hesitation; and in hesitating, she looked away from a look atWilloughby, thinking (so much against her nature was it to resignherself to him) that it would not have been so difficult with anill-favoured man. With one horribly ugly, it would have been a horribleexultation to cast off her youth and take the fiendish leap.
Unfortunately for Sir Willoughby, he had his reasons for pressingimpatience; and seeing her deliberate, seeing her hasty look at hisfine figure, his opinion of himself combined with his recollection of aparticular maxim of the Great Book to assure him that her resistancewas over: chiefly owing, as he supposed, to his physical perfections.
Frequently indeed, in the contest between gentlemen and ladies, havethe maxims of the Book stimulated the assailant to victory. They arerosy with blood of victims. To bear them is to hear a horn that blowsthe mort: has blown it a thousand times. It is good to remember howoften they have succeeded, when, for the benefit of some future LadyVauban, who may bestir her wits to gather maxims for the inspiriting ofthe Defence, the circumstance of a failure has to be recorded.
Willoughby could not wait for the melting of the snows. He saw fullsurely the dissolving process; and sincerely admiring and coveting heras he did, rashly this ill-fated gentleman attempted to precipitate it,and so doing arrested.
Whence might we draw a note upon yonder maxim, in words akin to these:Make certain ere a breath come from thee that thou be not a frost.
"Mine! She is mine!" he cried: "mine once more! mine utterly! mineeternally!" and he followed up his devouring exclamations in person asshe, less decidedly, retreated. She retreated as young ladies shouldever do, two or three steps, and he would not notice that she hadbecome an angry Dian, all arrows: her maidenliness in surrenderingpleased him. Grasping one fair hand, he just allowed her to edge on theouter circle of his embrace, crying: "Not a syllable of what I havegone through! You shall not have to explain it, my Clara. I will studyyou more diligently, to be guided by you, my darling. If I offendagain, my wife will not find it hard to speak what my bride withheld--Ido not ask why: perhaps not able to weigh the effect of her reticence:not at that time, when she was younger and less experienced, estimatingthe sacredness of a plighted engagement. It is past, we are one, mydear sir and father. You may leave us now."
"I profoundly rejoice to hear that I may," said Dr. Middleton. Clarawrithed her captured hand.
"No, papa, stay. It is an error, an error. You must not leave me. Donot think me utterly, eternally, belonging to any one but you. No oneshall say I am his but you."
<
br /> "Are you quicksands, Clara Middleton, that nothing can be built on you?Whither is a flighty head and a shifty will carrying the girl?"
"Clara and I, sir," said Willoughby.
"And so you shall," said the Doctor, turning about.
"Not yet, papa:" Clara sprang to him.
"Why, you, you, you, it was you who craved to be alone withWilloughby!" her father shouted; "and here we are rounded to ourstarting-point, with the solitary difference that now you do not wantto be alone with Willoughby. First I am bidden go; next I am pulledback; and judging by collar and coat-tag, I suspect you to be a youngwoman to wear an angel's temper threadbare before you determine uponwhich one of the tides driving him to and fro you intend to launch onyourself, Where is your mind?"
Clara smoothed her forehead.
"I wish to please you, papa."
"I request you to please the gentleman who is your appointed husband."
"I am anxious to perform my duty."
"That should be a satisfactory basis for you, Willoughby; as girls go!"
"Let me, sir, simply entreat to have her hand in mine before you."
"Why not, Clara?"
"Why an empty ceremony, papa?"
"The implication is, that she is prepared for the important one, friendWilloughby."
"Her hand, sir; the reassurance of her hand in mine under youreyes:--after all that I have suffered, I claim it, I think I claim itreasonably, to restore me to confidence."
"Quite reasonably; which is not to say, necessarily; but, I will add,justifiably; and it may be, sagaciously, when dealing with thevolatile."
"And here," said Willoughby, "is my hand."
Clara recoiled.
He stepped on. Her father frowned. She lifted both her hands from theshrinking elbows, darted a look of repulsion at her pursuer, and ran toher father, crying: "Call it my mood! I am volatile, capricious,flighty, very foolish. But you see that I attach a real meaning to it,and feel it to be binding: I cannot think it an empty ceremony, if itis before you. Yes, only be a little considerate to your moody girl.She will be in a fitter state in a few hours. Spare me this moment; Imust collect myself. I thought I was free; I thought he would not pressme. If I give my hand hurriedly now, I shall, I know, immediatelyrepent it. There is the picture of me! But, papa, I mean to try to beabove that, and if I go and walk by myself, I shall grow calm toperceive where my duty lies . . ."
"In which direction shall you walk?" said Willoughby.
"Wisdom is not upon a particular road," said Dr. Middleton.
"I have a dread, sir, of that one which leads to the railway-station."
"With some justice!" Dr. Middleton sighed over his daughter.
Clara coloured to deep crimson: but she was beyond anger, and wasrather gratified by an offence coming from Willoughby.
"I will promise not to leave his grounds, papa."
"My child, you have threatened to be a breaker of promises."
"Oh!" she wailed. "But I will make it a vow to you."
"Why not make it a vow to me this moment, for this gentleman'scontentment, that he shall be your husband within a given period?"
"I will come to you voluntarily. I burn to be alone."
"I shall lose her," exclaimed Willoughby, in heartfelt earnest.
"How so?" said Dr. Middleton. "I have her, sir, if you will favour meby continuing in abeyance.--You will come within an hour voluntarily,Clara; and you will either at once yield your hand to him or you willfurnish reasons, and they must be good ones, for withholding it."
"Yes, papa."
"You will?"
"I will."
"Mind, I say reasons."
"Reasons, papa. If I have none . . ."
"If you have none that are to my satisfaction, you implicitly andinstantly, and cordially obey my command."
"I will obey."
"What more would you require?" Dr. Middleton bowed to Sir Willoughby intriumph.
"Will she. . ."
"Sir! Sir!"
"She is your daughter, sir. I am satisfied."
"She has perchance wrestled with her engagement, as the aboriginals ofa land newly discovered by a crew of adventurous colonists do battlewith the garments imposed on them by our consideratecivilization;--ultimately to rejoice with excessive dignity in thewearing of a battered cocked-hat and trowsers not extending to theshanks: but she did not break her engagement, sir; and we willanticipate that, moderating a young woman's native wildness, she may,after the manner of my comparison, take a similar pride in her fortunein good season."
Willoughby had not leisure to sound the depth of Dr. Middleton'scompliment. He had seen Clara gliding out of the room during thedelivery; and his fear returned on him that, not being won, she waslost.
"She has gone." Her father noticed her absence. "She does not wastetime in her mission to procure that astonishing product of a shallowsoil, her reasons; if such be the object of her search. But no: itsignifies that she deems herself to have need of composure--nothingmore. No one likes to be turned about; we like to turn ourselves about;and in the question of an act to be committed, we stipulate that itshall be our act--girls and others. After the lapse of an hour, itwill appear to her as her act. Happily, Willoughby, we do not dineaway from Patterne to-night."
"No, sir."
"It may be attributable to a sense of deserving, but I could pleadguilty to a weakness for old Port to-day."
"There shall be an extra bottle, sir."
"All going favourably with you, as I have no cause to doubt," said DrMiddleton, with the motion of wafting his host out of the library.