“You take it for granted, I see, that Miss Doran will be guided by our judgment,” said Mallard, after musing on the last remark.

“I have no fear of that,” replied Mrs. Lessingham with confidence, “if it is made to appear only a question of postponement.  This will be a trifle compared with my task of yesterday morning.  You can scarcely imagine how astonished she was at the first hint of opposition.”

“I can imagine it very well,” said the other, in his throat.  “What else could be expected after—­” He checked himself on the point of saying something that would have revealed his opinion of Mrs. Lessingham’s “system”—­his opinion accentuated by unreasoning bitterness.  “From all we know of her,” were the words he substituted.

“She is more like her father than I had supposed,” said Mrs. Lessingham, meditatively.

Mallard stood up.

“You will let her know that I have been here?”

“Certainly.”

“She has expressed no wish to see me?”

“None.  I had better report to her simply that you have no objection to Mr. Elgar’s visits.”

“That is all I would say at present.  I shall see Elgar tonight.  He is still at Casa Rolandi, I take it?”

“That was the address on his letter.”

“Then, good-night.  By-the-bye, I had better give you my address.”  He wrote it on a leaf in his pocket-book.  “I will see you again in a day or two, when things have begun to clear up.”

“It’s too bad that you should have this trouble, Mr. Mallard.”

“I don’t pretend to like it, but there’s no help.”

And he left Mrs. Lessingham to make her comment on his candour.

Yes, Signor Elgar was in his chamber; he had entered but a quarter of an hour since.  The signor seemed not quite well, unhappily—­ said Olimpia, the domestic, in her chopped Neapolitan.  Mallard vouchsafed no reply.  He knocked sharply at the big solid door.  There was a cry of “Avanti!” and he entered.

Elgar advanced a few steps.  He did not affect to smile, but looked directly at his visitor, who—­as if all the pain of the interview were on him rather than the other—­cast down his eyes.

“I was expecting you,” said Reuben, without offering his hand.

“So was I you—­three days ago.”

“Sit down, and let us talk.  I’m ashamed of myself, Mallard.  I ought at all events to have written.”

“One would have thought so.”

“Have you seen Mrs. Lessingham?”

“Yes.”

“Then you understand everything.  I repeat that I am ashamed of my behaviour to you.  For days—­since last Saturday—­I have been little better than a madman.  On Saturday I went to say good-bye to Mrs. Lessingham and her niece; it was bona fide, Mallard.”

“In your sense of the phrase.  Go on.”

“I tell you, I then meant to leave Naples,” pursued Elgar, who had repeated this so often to himself, by way of palliation, that he had come to think it true.  “It was not my fault that I couldn’t when that visit was over.  It happened that I saw Miss Doran alone—­sat talking with her till her aunt returned.”