Nothing but the habit of public performance saved her from making the serious error that she had committed more palpable still, by attempting to set it right.  Here her past practice in the Entertainment came to her rescue, and urged her to go on instantly in Miss Garth’s voice as if nothing had happened.

“You mean well, Mrs. Lecount,” she continued, “but you are doing harm instead of good.  My pupils will accept no such compromise as you propose.  I am sorry to have spoken violently just now; I beg you will excuse me.”  She looked hard for information in the housekeeper’s face while she spoke those conciliatory words.  Mrs. Lecount baffled the look by putting her handkerchief to her eyes.  Had she, or had she not, noticed the momentary change in Magdalen’s voice from the tones that were assumed to the tones that were natural?  Impossible to say.

“What more can I do!” murmured Mrs. Lecount behind her handkerchief.  “Give me time to think—­give me time to recover myself.  May I retire, sir, for a moment?  My nerves are shaken by this sad scene.  I must have a glass of water, or I think I shall faint.  Don’t go yet, Miss Garth.  I beg you will give us time to set this sad matter right, if we can—­I beg you will remain until I come back.”

There were two doors of entrance to the room.  One, the door into the front parlor, close at Magdalen’s left hand.  The other, the door into the back parlor, situated behind her.  Mrs. Lecount politely retired—­through the open folding-doors—­by this latter means of exit, so as not to disturb the visitor by passing in front of her.  Magdalen waited until she heard the door open and close again behind her, and then resolved to make the most of the opportunity which left her alone with Noel Vanstone.  The utter hopelessness of rousing a generous impulse in that base nature had now been proved by her own experience.  The last chance left was to treat him like the craven creature he was, and to influence him through his fears.

Before she could speak, Noel Vanstone himself broke the silence.  Cunningly as he strove to hide it, he was half angry, half alarmed at his housekeeper’s desertion of him.  He looked doubtingly at his visitor; he showed a nervous anxiety to conciliate her until Mrs. Lecount’s return.

“Pray remember, ma’am, I never denied that this case was a hard one,” he began.  “You said just now you had no wish to offend me—­and I’m sure I don’t want to offend you.  May I offer you some strawberries?  Would you like to look at my father’s bargains?  I assure you, ma’am, I am naturally a gallant man; and I feel for both these sisters—­especially the younger one.  Touch me on the subject of the tender passion, and you touch me on a weak place.  Nothing would please me more than to hear that Miss Vanstone’s lover (I’m sure I always call her Miss Vanstone, and so does Lecount)—­I say, ma’am, nothing would please me more than to hear that Miss Vanstone’s lover had come back and married her.  If a loan of money would be likely to bring him back, and if the security offered was good, and if my lawyer thought me justified—­”