“What—­here, in London?  I am not quite sure that she wishes to come up to London at present.”

“I have never understood that she had any objection to being in town,” said Lady Ongar.

“Not formerly, certainly; but now, since her boy’s death—­”

“Why should his death make more difference to her than to you?” To this question Sir Hugh made no reply.  “If you are thinking of society, she could be nowhere safer from any such necessity than with me.  I never go out anywhere.  I have never dined out, or even spent an evening in company, since Lord Ongar’s death.  And no one would come here to disturb her.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“I don’t quite know what you did mean.  From different causes, she and I are left pretty nearly equally without friends.”

“Hermione is not left without friends,” said Sir Hugh, with a tone of offence.

“Were she not, she would not want to come to me.  Your society is in London, to which she does not come, or in other country houses than your own, to which she is not taken.  She lives altogether at Clavering, and there is no one there except your uncle.”

“Whatever neighborhood there is she has—­just like other women.”

“Just like some other women, no doubt.  I shall remain in town for another month, and after that I shall go somewhere, I don’t much care where.  If Hermy will come to me as my guest, I shall be most happy to have her; and the longer she will stay with me the better.  Your coming home need make no difference, I suppose.”

There was a keenness of reproach in her tone as she spoke which even he could not but feel and acknowledge.  He was very thick-skinned to such reproaches, and would have left this unnoticed had it been possible.  Had she continued speaking he would have done so.  But she remained silent, and sat looking at him, saying with her eyes the same thing that she had already spoken with her words.  Thus he was driven to speak.  “I don’t know,” said he, “whether you intend that for a sneer.”

She was perfectly indifferent whether or no she offended him.  Only that she had believed that the maintenance of her own dignity forbade it, she would have openly rebuked him, and told him that he was not welcome in her house.  No treatment from her could, as she thought, be worse than he had deserved from her.  His first enmity had injured her, but she could afford to laugh at his present anger.  “It is hard to talk to you about Hermy without what you are pleased to call a sneer.  You simply wish to rid yourself of her.”

“I wish to do no such thing, and you have no right to say so.”

“At any rate, you are ridding yourself of her society; and under those circumstances, she likes to come to me, I shall be glad to receive her.  Our life together will not be very cheerful, but neither she nor I ought to expect a cheerful life.”

He rose from his chair now with a cloud of anger upon his brow.  “I can see how it is,” said he; “because everything has not gone smooth with yourself; you choose to resent it upon me.  I might have expected that you would not have forgotten in whose house you met Lord Ongar.”