“Should be!” Willoughby’s tone was a pungent comment on her.

“Love, then, I find I have not.  I think I am antagonistic to it.  What people say of it I have not experienced.  I find I was mistaken.  It is lightly said, but very painful.  You understand me, that my prayer is for liberty, that I may not be tied.  If you can release and pardon me, or promise ultimately to pardon me, or say some kind word, I shall know it is because I am beneath you utterly that I have been unable to give you the love you should have with a wife.  Only say to me, go!  It is you who break the match, discovering my want of a heart.  What people think of me matters little.  My anxiety will be to save you annoyance.”

She waited for him; he seemed on the verge of speaking.

He perceived her expectation; he had nothing but clownish tumult within, and his dignity counselled him to disappoint her.

Swaying his head, like the oriental palm whose shade is a blessing to the perfervid wanderer below, smiling gravely, he was indirectly asking his dignity what he could say to maintain it and deal this mad young woman a bitterly compassionate rebuke.  What to think, hung remoter.  The thing to do struck him first.

He squeezed both her hands, threw the door wide open, and said, with countless blinkings:  “In the laboratory we are uninterrupted.  I was at a loss to guess where that most unpleasant effect on the senses came from.  They are always ‘guessing’ through the nose.  I mean, the remainder of breakfast here.  Perhaps I satirized them too smartly—­if you know the letters.  When they are not ‘calculating’.  More offensive than debris of a midnight banquet!  An American tour is instructive, though not so romantic.  Not so romantic as Italy, I mean.  Let us escape.”

She held back from his arm.  She had scattered his brains; it was pitiable:  but she was in the torrent and could not suffer a pause or a change of place.

“It must be here; one minute more—­I cannot go elsewhere to begin again.  Speak to me here; answer my request.  Once; one word.  If you forgive me, it will be superhuman.  But, release me.”

“Seriously,” he rejoined, “tea-cups and coffee-cups, breadcrumbs. egg-shells, caviare, butter, beef, bacon!  Can we?  The room reeks.”

“Then I will go for my walk with Miss Dale.  And you will speak to me when I return?”

“At all seasons.  You shall go with Miss Dale.  But, my dear! my love!  Seriously, where are we?  One hears of lover’s quarrels.  Now I never quarrel.  It is a characteristic of mine.  And you speak of me to my cousin Vernon!  Seriously, plighted faith signifies plighted faith, as much as an iron-cable is iron to hold by.  Some little twist of the mind?  To Vernon, of all men!  Tush! she has been dreaming of a hero of perfection, and the comparison is unfavourable to her Willoughby.  But, my Clara, when I say to you, that bride is bride, and you are mine, mine!”