“Would you secure to him a settled income?  For an idle gentleman is bad enough; a penniless gentleman . . .”

“He has only to please me, my dear, and he will be launched and protected.”

“But if he does not succeed in pleasing you?”

“Is it so difficult?”

“Oh!” Clara fretted.

“You see, my love, I answer you,” said Sir Willoughby.

He resumed:  “But let old Vernon have his trial with the lad.  He has his own ideas.  Let him carry them out.  I shall watch the experiment.”

Clara was for abandoning her task in sheer faintness.

“Is not the question one of money?” she said, shyly, knowing Mr. Whitford to be poor.

“Old Vernon chooses to spend his money that way.” replied Sir Willoughby.  “If it saves him from breaking his shins and risking his neck on his Alps, we may consider it well employed.”

“Yes,” Clara’s voice occupied a pause.

She seized her languor as it were a curling snake and cast it off.  “But I understand that Mr. Whitford wants your assistance.  Is he not—­not rich?  When he leaves the Hall to try his fortune in literature in London, he may not be so well able to support Crossjay and obtain the instruction necessary for the boy:  and it would be generous to help him.”

“Leaves the Hall!” exclaimed Willoughby.  “I have not heard a word of it.  He made a bad start at the beginning, and I should have thought that would have tamed him:  had to throw over his Fellowship; ahem.  Then he received a small legacy some time back, and wanted to be off to push his luck in Literature:  rank gambling, as I told him.  Londonizing can do him no good.  I thought that nonsense of his was over years ago.  What is it he has from me?—­about a hundred and fifty a year:  and it might be doubled for the asking:  and all the books he requires:  and these writers and scholars no sooner think of a book than they must have it.  And do not suppose me to complain.  I am a man who will not have a single shilling expended by those who serve immediately about my person.  I confess to exacting that kind of dependency.  Feudalism is not an objectionable thing if you can be sure of the lord.  You know, Clara, and you should know me in my weakness too, I do not claim servitude, I stipulate for affection.  I claim to be surrounded by persons loving me.  And with one? . . . dearest!  So that we two can shut out the world; we live what is the dream of others.  Nothing imaginable can be sweeter.  It is a veritable heaven on earth.  To be the possessor of the whole of you!  Your thoughts, hopes, all.”