Briggs’s condition was so bad already that the only course to take with him was to repel him utterly, Mr. Wilkins considered.  No half measures were the least use with Briggs, and kindliness and familiar talk would only be misunderstood by the unhappy youth.  The daughter of the Droitwiches could not really, it was impossible to suppose it, desire to encourage him.  Briggs was all very well, but Briggs was Briggs; his name alone proved that.  Probably Lady Caroline did not quite appreciate the effect of her voice and face, and how between them they made otherwise ordinary words seem—­well, encouraging.  But these words were not quite ordinary; she had not, he feared, sufficiently pondered them.  Indeed and indeed she needed an adviser—­some sagacious, objective counselor like himself.  There she was, standing before Briggs almost holding out her hand to him.  Briggs of course ought to be thanked, for they were having a most delightful holiday in his house, but not thanked to excess and not by Lady Caroline alone.  That very evening he had been considering the presentation to him next day of a round robin of collective gratitude on his departure; but he should not be thanked like this, in the moonlight, in the garden, by the lady he was so manifestly infatuated with.

Mr. Wilkins therefore, desiring to assist Lady Caroline out of this situation by swiftly applied tact, said with much heartiness:  “It is most proper, Briggs, that you should be thanked.  You will please allow me to add my expressions of indebtedness, and those of my wife, to Lady Caroline’s.  We ought to have proposed a vote of thanks to you at diner.  You should have been toasted.  There certainly ought to have been some—­”

But Briggs took no notice of him whatever; he simply continued to look at Lady Caroline as though she were the first woman he had ever seen.  Neither, Mr. Wilkins observed, did Lady Caroline take any notice of him; she too continued to look at Briggs, and with that odd air of almost appeal.  Most unwise.  Most.

Lotty, on the other hand, took too much notice of him, choosing this moment when Lady Caroline needed special support and protection to get up off the wall and put her arm through his and draw him away.

“I want to tell you something, Mellersh,” said Lotty at this juncture, getting up.

“Presently,” said Mr. Wilkins, waving her aside.

“No—­now,” said Lotty; and she drew him away.

He went with extreme reluctance.  Briggs should be given no rope at all—­not an inch.

“Well—­what is it?” he asked impatiently, as she led him towards the house.  Lady Caroline ought not to be left like that, exposed to annoyance.

“Oh, but she isn’t,” Lotty assured him, just as if he had said this aloud, which he certainly had not.  “Caroline is perfectly all right.”

“Not at all all right.  That young Briggs is—­”

“Of course he is.  What did you expect?  Let’s go indoors to the fire and Mrs. Fisher.  She’s all by herself.”