Willoughby walked the thoroughfares of the house to meet Clara and make certain of her either for himself, or, if it must be, for Vernon, before he took another step with Laetitia Dale.  Clara could reunite him, turn him once more into a whole and an animated man; and she might be willing.  Her willingness to listen to Vernon promised it.  “A gentleman with a tongue would have a chance”, Mrs. Mountstuart had said.  How much greater the chance of a lover!  For he had not yet supplicated her:  he had shown pride and temper.  He could woo, he was a torrential wooer.  And it would be glorious to swing round on Lady Busshe and the world, with Clara nestling under an arm, and protest astonishment at the erroneous and utterly unfounded anticipations of any other development.  And it would righteously punish Laetitia.

Clara came downstairs, bearing her letter to Miss Darleton.

“Must it be posted?” Willoughby said, meeting her in the hall.

“They expect us any day, but it will be more comfortable for papa,” was her answer.  She looked kindly in her new shyness.

She did not seem to think he had treated her contemptuously in flinging her to his cousin, which was odd.

“You have seen Vernon?”

“It was your wish.”

“You had a talk?”

“We conversed.”

“A long one?”

“We walked some distance.”

“Clara, I tried to make the best arrangement I could.”

“Your intention was generous.”

“He took no advantage of it?”

“It could not be treated seriously.”

“It was meant seriously.”

“There I see the generosity.”

Willoughby thought this encomium, and her consent to speak on the subject, and her scarcely embarrassed air and richness of tone in speaking, very strange:  and strange was her taking him quite in earnest.  Apparently she had no feminine sensation of the unwontedness and the absurdity of the matter!

“But, Clara, am I to understand that he did not speak out?”

“We are excellent friends.”

“To miss it, though his chance were the smallest!”

“You forget that it may not wear that appearance to him.”

“He spoke not one word of himself?”

“No.”

“Ah! the poor old fellow was taught to see it was hopeless—­chilled.  May I plead?  Will you step into the laboratory for a minute?  We are two sensible persons . . .”

“Pardon me, I must go to papa.”

“Vernon’s personal history, perhaps . . .”

“I think it honourable to him.”

“Honourable!—­’hem!”

“By comparison.”

“Comparison with what?”

“With others.”

He drew up to relieve himself of a critical and condemnatory expiration of a certain length.  This young lady knew too much.  But how physically exquisite she was!

“Could you, Clara, could you promise me—­I hold to it.  I must have it, I know his shy tricks—­promise me to give him ultimately another chance?  Is the idea repulsive to you?”