Before Miss Garth’s battery of reproof could open fire, before the first outburst of Mr. Vanstone’s hearty laughter could escape his lips, she bowed to them with imperturbable gravity; ascended the house-steps, for the first time in her life, at a walk instead of a run, and retired then and there to the bedroom regions.  Frank’s helpless astonishment at her disappearance added a new element of absurdity to the scene.  He stood first on one leg and then on the other; rolling and unrolling his part, and looking piteously in the faces of the friends about him.  “I know I can’t do it,” he said.  “May I come in after tea, and hear Magdalen’s views?  Thank you—­I’ll look in about eight.  Don’t tell my father about this acting, please; I should never hear the last of it.”  Those were the only words he had spirit enough to utter.  He drifted away aimlessly in the direction of the shrubbery, with the part hanging open in his hand—­the most incapable of Falklands, and the most helpless of mankind.

Frank’s departure left the family by themselves, and was the signal accordingly for an attack on Mr. Vanstone’s inveterate carelessness in the exercise of his paternal authority.

“What could you possibly be thinking of, Andrew, when you gave your consent?” said Mrs. Vanstone.  “Surely my silence was a sufficient warning to you to say No?”

“A mistake, Mr. Vanstone,” chimed in Miss Garth.  “Made with the best intentions—­but a mistake for all that.”

“It may be a mistake,” said Norah, taking her father’s part, as usual.  “But I really don’t see how papa, or any one else, could have declined, under the circumstances.”

“Quite right, my dear,” observed Mr. Vanstone.  “The circumstances, as you say, were dead against me.  Here were these unfortunate people in a scrape on one side; and Magdalen, on the other, mad to act.  I couldn’t say I had methodistical objections—­I’ve nothing methodistical about me.  What other excuse could I make?  The Marrables are respectable people, and keep the best company in Clifton.  What harm can she get in their house?  If you come to prudence and that sort of thing—­why shouldn’t Magdalen do what Miss Marrable does?  There! there! let the poor things act, and amuse themselves.  We were their age once—­and it’s no use making a fuss—­and that’s all I’ve got to say about it.”

With that characteristic defense of his own conduct, Mr. Vanstone sauntered back to the greenhouse to smoke another cigar.

“I didn’t say so to papa,” said Norah, taking her mother’s arm on the way back to the house, “but the bad result of the acting, in my opinion, will be the familiarity it is sure to encourage between Magdalen and Francis Clare.”

“You are prejudiced against Frank, my love,” said Mrs. Vanstone.

Norah’s soft, secret, hazel eyes sank to the ground; she said no more.  Her opinions were unchangeable—­but she never disputed with anybody.  She had the great failing of a reserved nature—­the failing of obstinacy; and the great merit—­the merit of silence.  “What is your head running on now?” thought Miss Garth, casting a sharp look at Norah’s dark, downcast face.  “You’re one of the impenetrable sort.  Give me Magdalen, with all her perversities; I can see daylight through her.  You’re as dark as night.”