“And join the right hand to the right,” said Dr. Middleton; “no, it would not be possible.  What insane root she has been nibbling, I know not, but she must consign herself to the guidance of those whom the gods have not abandoned, until her intellect is liberated.  She was once . . . there:  I look not back—­if she it was, and no simulacrum of a reasonable daughter.  I welcome the appearance of my friend Mr. Whitford.  He is my sea-bath and supper on the beach of Troy, after the day’s battle and dust.”

Vernon walked straight up to them:  an act unusual with him, for he was shy of committing an intrusion.

Clara guessed by that, and more by the dancing frown of speculative humour he turned on Willoughby, that he had come charged in support of her.  His forehead was curiously lively, as of one who has got a surprise well under, to feed on its amusing contents.

“Have you seen Crossjay, Mr. Whitford?” she said.

“I’ve pounced on Crossjay; his bones are sound.”

“Where did he sleep?”

“On a sofa, it seems.”

She smiled, with good hope—­Vernon had the story.

Willoughby thought it just to himself that he should defend his measure of severity.

“The boy lied; he played a double game.”

“For which he should have been reasoned with at the Grecian portico of a boy,” said the Rev. Doctor.

“My system is different, sir.  I could not inflict what I would not endure myself”

“So is Greek excluded from the later generations; and you leave a field, the most fertile in the moralities in youth, unplowed and unsown.  Ah! well.  This growing too fine is our way of relapsing upon barbarism.  Beware of over-sensitiveness, where nature has plainly indicated her alternative gateway of knowledge.  And now, I presume, I am at liberty.”

“Vernon will excuse us for a minute or two.”

“I hold by Mr. Whitford now I have him.”

“I’ll join you in the laboratory, Vernon,” Willoughby nodded bluntly.

“We will leave them, Mr. Whitford.  They are at the time-honoured dissension upon a particular day, that, for the sake of dignity, blushes to be named.”

“What day?” said Vernon, like a rustic.

“The day, these people call it.”

Vernon sent one of his vivid eyeshots from one to the other.  His eyes fixed on Willoughby’s with a quivering glow, beyond amazement, as if his humour stood at furnace-heat, and absorbed all that came.

Willoughby motioned to him to go.

“Have you seen Miss Dale, Mr. Whitford?” said Clara.

He answered, “No.  Something has shocked her.”

“Is it her feeling for Crossjay?”

“Ah!” Vernon said to Willoughby, “your pocketing of the key of Crossjay’s bedroom door was a master-stroke!”

The celestial irony suffused her, and she bathed and swam in it, on hearing its dupe reply:  “My methods of discipline are short.  I was not aware that she had been to his door.”