‘I wish he did.’

’But he desires that our intercourse should be no more than propriety demands, and plunges into a discourse against first impressions, beauty, and the like.’

‘So that’s the counterblast!’

‘You ought to help me, Jem,’ said Louis, dejectedly.

‘I’ll help you with all my heart to combat your father’s prejudices.’

’An hour’s unrestrained intercourse with these people would best destroy them,’ said Louis; ’but, in the mean time—­I wonder what he means.’

‘He means that he is in terror for his darling scheme.’

‘Mrs. Ponsonby was very right,’ sighed Louis.

’Ay!  A pretty condition you would be in, if she had not had too much principle to let you be a victim to submission.  That’s what you’ll come to, though!  You will never know the meaning of passion; you will escape something by it, though you will be twisted round his lordship’s finger, and marry his choice.  I hope she will have red hair!’

‘Negative and positive obedience stand on different grounds,’ said Louis, with such calmness as often fretted James, but saved their friendship.  ’Besides, till I had this letter, I had no notion of any such thing.’

James’s indignation resulted in fierce stammering; while Louis deliberately continued a viva voce self-examination, with his own quaint naivete, betraying emotion only by the burning colour of cheek and brow.

’No; I had no such notion.  I only felt that her presence had the gladdening, inspiriting, calming effect of moonlight or starlight.  I reverenced her as a dream of poetry walking the earth.  Ha! now one hears the sound of it—­that is like it!  I did not think it was such a confirmed case.  I should have gone on in peace but for this letter, and never thought about it at all.’

‘So much the better for you!’

’My father is too just and candid not to own his error, and be thankful.’

‘And you expect her to bear with your alternations in the mean time?’

’Towards her I have not alternated.  When I have made giggle with Clara under the influence of the starry sky, did you suppose me giggling with Lyra or the Pleiades!  I should dread to see the statue descend; it seemed irreverence even to gaze.  The lofty serenity keeps me aloof.  I like to believe in a creature too bright and good for human nature’s daily food.  Our profane squinting through telescopes at the Lady Moon reveals nothing but worn-out volcanoes and dry oceans, black gulfs and scorched desolation; but verily that may not be Lady Moon’s fault—­only that of our base inventions.  So I would be content to mark her—­Isabel, I mean—­queenly, moonlike name!—­walk in beauty and tranquillity unruffled, without distorting my vision by personal aims at bringing her down to my level.  There-don’t laugh at me, Jem.’

‘No, I am too sorry for you.’

‘Why!’ be exclaimed, impatient of compassion; ’do you think it desperate?’