Valencia looked up at him, expecting him to go too.  Mrs. Vavasour began bustling about the room, collecting little valuables, and looking over her shoulders at the now unwelcome guest.  But Frank leaned back in a cosy arm-chair, and did not stir.  His hands were clasped on his knees; he seemed lost in thought; very pale:  but there was a firm set look about his lips which attracted Valencia’s attention.  Once he looked up in Valencia’s face, and saw that she was looking at him.  A flush came over his cheeks for a moment, and then he seemed as impassive as ever.  What could he want there!  How very gauche and rude of him; so unlike him, too!  And she said, civilly enough, to him, “I fear, Mr. Headley, we must begin packing up now.”

“I fear you must, indeed,” answered he, as if starting from a dream.  He spoke in a tone, and with a look, which made both the women start; for what they meant it was impossible to doubt.

“I fear you must.  I have foreseen it a long time; and so, I fear (and he rose from his seat), must I, unless I mean to be very rude.  You will at least take away with you the knowledge, that you have given to one person’s existence, at least for a few weeks, pleasure more intense than he thought earth could hold.”

“I trust that pretty compliment was meant for me,” said Lucia, half playful, half reproving.

“I am sure that it ought not to have been meant for me,” said Valencia, more downright than her sister.  Both could see for whom it was meant, by the look of passionate worship which Frank fixed on a face which, after all, seemed made to be worshipped.

“I trust that neither of you,” answered he, quietly, “think me impertinent enough to pretend to make love, as it is called, to Miss St. Just.  I know who she is, and who I am.  Gentleman as I am, and the descendant of gentlemen” (and Frank looked a little proud, as he spoke, and very handsome), “I see clearly enough the great gulf fixed between us; and I like it; for it enables me to say truth which I otherwise dare not have spoken; as a brother might say to a sister, or a subject to a queen.  Either analogy will do equally well and equally ill.”

Frank, without the least intending it, had taken up the very strongest military position.  Let a man once make a woman understand, or fancy, that he knows that he is nothing to her; and confess boldly that there is a great gulf fixed between them, which he has no mind to bridge over:  and then there is little that he may not see or do, for good or for evil.

And therefore it was that Lucia answered gently, “I am sure you are not well, Mr. Headley.  The excitement of the night has been too much for you.”

“Do I look excited, my dear madam?” he answered quietly.  “I assure you that I am as calm as a man must be who believes that he has but a few days to live, and trusts, too, that when he dies, he will be infinitely happier than he ever has been on earth, and lay down an office which he has never discharged otherwise than ill; which has been to him a constant source of shame and sorrow.”