He feared that his lips and cheeks were twitching, and as he grew aware of a glassiness of aspect that would reflect any suspicion of a keen-eyed woman, he became bolder still!

“Laetitia’s, I know it is not.  Hers is an ancient purse.”

“A present from you!”

“How do you hit on that, my dear lady?”

“Deductively.”

“Well, the purse looks as good as new in quality, like the owner.”

“The poor dear has not much occasion for using it.”

“You are mistaken:  she uses it daily.”

“If it were better filled, Sir Willoughby, your old scheme might be arranged.  The parties do not appear so unwilling.  Professor Crooklyn and I came on them just now rather by surprise, and I assure you their heads were close, faces meeting, eyes musing.”

“Impossible.”

“Because when they approach the point, you won’t allow it!  Selfish!”

“Now,” said Willoughby, very animatedly, “question Clara.  Now, do, my dear Mrs. Mountstuart, do speak to Clara on that head; she will convince you I have striven quite recently against myself, if you like.  I have instructed her to aid me, given her the fullest instructions, carte blanche.  She cannot possibly have a doubt.  I may look to her to remove any you may entertain from your mind on the subject.  I have proposed, seconded, and chorussed it, and it will not be arranged.  If you expect me to deplore that fact, I can only answer that my actions are under my control, my feelings are not.  I will do everything consistent with the duties of a man of honour perpetually running into fatal errors because he did not properly consult the dictates of those feelings at the right season.  I can violate them:  but I can no more command them than I can my destiny.  They were crushed of old, and so let them be now.  Sentiments we won’t discuss; though you know that sentiments have a bearing on social life:  are factors, as they say in their later jargon.  I never speak of mine.  To you I could.  It is not necessary.  If old Vernon, instead of flattening his chest at a desk, had any manly ambition to take part in public affairs, she would be the woman for him.  I have called her my Egeria.  She would be his Cornelia.  One could swear of her that she would have noble offspring!—­But old Vernon has had his disappointment, and will moan over it up to the end.  And she?  So it appears.  I have tried; yes, personally:  without effect.  In other matters I may have influence with her:  not in that one.  She declines.  She will live and die Laetitia Dale.  We are alone:  I confess to you, I love the name.  It’s an old song in my ears.  Do not be too ready with a name for me.  Believe me—­I speak from my experience hitherto—­there is a fatality in these things.  I cannot conceal from my poor girl that this fatality exists . . .”

“Which is the poor girl at present?” said Mrs. Mountstuart, cool in a mystification.

“And though she will tell you that I have authorized and Clara Middleton—­done as much as man can to institute the union you suggest, she will own that she is conscious of the presence of this—­fatality, I call it for want of a better title between us.  It drives her in one direction, me in another—­or would, if I submitted to the pressure.  She is not the first who has been conscious of it.”