“Ah!  You are driving one of Mr. Merriman’s witticisms at me, Horace; I am dense.”

Willoughby bowed to Dr. Middleton, and drew him from Vernon, filially taking his turn to talk with him closely.

De Craye saw Clara’s look as her father and Willoughby went aside thus linked.

It lifted him over anxieties and casuistries concerning loyalty.  Powder was in the look to make a warhorse breathe high and shiver for the signal.

CHAPTER XXIV

CONTAINS AN INSTANCE OF THE GENEROSITY OF WILLOUGHBY

Observers of a gathering complication and a character in action commonly resemble gleaners who are intent only on picking up the cars of grain and huddling their store.  Disinterestedly or interestedly they wax over-eager for the little trifles, and make too much of them.  Observers should begin upon the precept, that not all we see is worth hoarding, and that the things we see are to be weighed in the scale with what we know of the situation, before we commit ourselves to a measurement.  And they may be accurate observers without being good judges.  They do not think so, and their bent is to glean hurriedly and form conclusions as hasty, when their business should be sift at each step, and question.

Miss Dale seconded Vernon Whitford in the occupation of counting looks and tones, and noting scraps of dialogue.  She was quite disinterested; he quite believed that he was; to this degree they were competent for their post; and neither of them imagined they could be personally involved in the dubious result of the scenes they witnessed.  They were but anxious observers, diligently collecting.  She fancied Clara susceptible to his advice:  he had fancied it, and was considering it one of his vanities.  Each mentally compared Clara’s abruptness in taking them into her confidence with her abstention from any secret word since the arrival of Colonel De Craye.  Sir Willoughby requested Laetitia to give Miss Middleton as much of her company as she could; showing that he was on the alert.  Another Constantia Durham seemed beating her wings for flight.  The suddenness of the evident intimacy between Clara and Colonel De Craye shocked Laetitia; their acquaintance could be computed by hours.  Yet at their first interview she had suspected the possibility of worse than she now supposed to be; and she had begged Vernon not immediately to quit the Hall, in consequence of that faint suspicion.  She had been led to it by meeting Clara and De Craye at her cottage-gate, and finding them as fluent and laughter-breathing in conversation as friends.  Unable to realize the rapid advance to a familiarity, more ostensible than actual, of two lively natures, after such an introduction as they had undergone:  and one of the two pining in a drought of liveliness:  Laetitia listened to their wager of nothing at all—­a no against a yes—­in the case of poor Flitch; and Clara’s, “Willoughby