“Permit me to tell you,” he replied.  “And suppose we sit down?”

He led me to a chair.  I have an indistinct remembrance that he was very affectionate.  I don’t think he put his arm round my waist to support me—­but I am not sure.  I was quite helpless, and his ways with ladies were very endearing.  At any rate, we sat down.  I can answer for that, if I can answer for nothing more.

CHAPTER VIII

“I have lost a beautiful girl, an excellent social position, and a handsome income,” Mr. Godfrey began; “and I have submitted to it without a struggle.  What can be the motive for such extraordinary conduct as that?  My precious friend, there is no motive.”

“No motive?” I repeated.

“Let me appeal, my dear Miss Clack, to your experience of children,” he went on.  “A child pursues a certain course of conduct.  You are greatly struck by it, and you attempt to get at the motive.  The dear little thing is incapable of telling you its motive.  You might as well ask the grass why it grows, or the birds why they sing.  Well! in this matter, I am like the dear little thing—­like the grass—­like the birds.  I don’t know why I made a proposal of marriage to Miss Verinder.  I don’t know why I have shamefully neglected my dear Ladies.  I don’t know why I have apostatised from the Mothers’ Small-Clothes.  You say to the child, Why have you been naughty?  And the little angel puts its finger into its mouth, and doesn’t know.  My case exactly, Miss Clack!  I couldn’t confess it to anybody else.  I feel impelled to confess it to you!”

I began to recover myself.  A mental problem was involved here.  I am deeply interested in mental problems—­and I am not, it is thought, without some skill in solving them.

“Best of friends, exert your intellect, and help me,” he proceeded.  “Tell me—­why does a time come when these matrimonial proceedings of mine begin to look like something done in a dream?  Why does it suddenly occur to me that my true happiness is in helping my dear Ladies, in going my modest round of useful work, in saying my few earnest words when called on by my Chairman?  What do I want with a position?  I have got a position?  What do I want with an income?  I can pay for my bread and cheese, and my nice little lodging, and my two coats a year.  What do I want with Miss Verinder?  She has told me with her own lips (this, dear lady, is between ourselves) that she loves another man, and that her only idea in marrying me is to try and put that other man out of her head.  What a horrid union is this!  Oh, dear me, what a horrid union is this!  Such are my reflections, Miss Clack, on my way to Brighton.  I approach Rachel with the feeling of a criminal who is going to receive his sentence.  When I find that she has changed her mind too—­when I hear her propose to break the engagement—­I experience (there is no sort of doubt about it) a most overpowering