drowning!—­admiration of my personal gifts has grown tasteless.  Changed, therefore, inasmuch as there has been a growth of spirituality.  We are all in submission to mortal laws, and so far I have indeed changed.  I may add that it is unusual for country gentlemen to apply themselves to scientific researches.  These are, however, in the spirit of the time.  I apprehended that instinctively when at College.  I forsook the classics for science.  And thereby escaped the vice of domineering self-sufficiency peculiar to classical men, of which you had an amusing example in the carriage, on the way to Mrs. Mountstuart’s this evening.  Science is modest; slow, if you like; it deals with facts, and having mastered them, it masters men; of necessity, not with a stupid, loud-mouthed arrogance:  words big and oddly garbed as the Pope’s body-guard.  Of course, one bows to the Infallible; we must, when his giant-mercenaries level bayonets.”

Sir Willoughby offered Miss Dale half a minute that she might in gentle feminine fashion acquiesce in the implied reproof of Dr. Middleton’s behaviour to him during the drive to Mrs. Mountstuart’s.  She did not.

Her heart was accusing Clara of having done it a wrong and a hurt.  For while he talked he seemed to her to justify Clara’s feelings and her conduct:  and her own reawakened sensations of injury came to the surface a moment to look at him, affirming that they pardoned him, and pitied, but hardly wondered.

The heat of the centre in him had administered the comfort he wanted, though the conclusive accordant notes he loved on woman’s lips, that subservient harmony of another instrument desired of musicians when they have done their solo-playing, came not to wind up the performance:  not a single bar.  She did not speak.  Probably his Laetitia was overcome, as he had long known her to be when they conversed; nerve-subdued, unable to deploy her mental resources or her musical.  Yet ordinarily she had command of the latter.—­Was she too condoling?  Did a reason exist for it?  Had the impulsive and desperate girl spoken out to Laetitia to the fullest?—­shameless daughter of a domineering sire that she was!  Ghastlier inquiry (it struck the centre of him with a sounding ring), was Laetitia pitying him overmuch for worse than the pain of a little difference between lovers—­for treason on the part of his bride?  Did she know of a rival? know more than he?

When the centre of him was violently struck he was a genius in penetration.  He guessed that she did know:  and by this was he presently helped to achieve pathos.

“So my election was for Science,” he continued; “and if it makes me, as I fear, a rara avis among country gentlemen, it unites me, puts me in the main, I may say, in the only current of progress—­a word sufficiently despicable in their political jargon.—­You enjoyed your evening at Mrs. Mountstuart’s?”

“Very greatly.”

“She brings her Professor to dine here the day after tomorrow.  Does it astonish you?  You started.”