Mrs. Doria, took forcible possession of him.  “Now, do come, and don’t waste words.  I insist upon your having some breakfast first, and then, if you really must go, you shall.  Look! there’s the house.  At least you will accompany your aunt to the door.”

Richard conceded this.  She little imagined what she required of him.  Two of his golden minutes melted into nothingness.  They were growing to be jewels of price, one by one more and more precious as they ran, and now so costly-rare—­rich as his blood! not to kindest relations, dearest friends, could he give another.  The die is cast!  Ferryman! push off.

“Good-bye!” he cried, nodding bluffly at the three as one, and fled.

They watched his abrupt muscular stride through the grounds of the house.  He looked like resolution on the march.  Mrs. Doria, as usual with her out of her brother’s hearing, began rating the System.

“See what becomes of that nonsensical education!  The boy really does not know how to behave like a common mortal.  He has some paltry appointment, or is mad after some ridiculous idea of his own, and everything must be sacrificed to it!  That’s what Austin calls concentration of the faculties.  I think it’s more likely to lead to downright insanity than to greatness of any kind.  And so I shall tell Austin.  It’s time he should be spoken to seriously about him.”

“He’s an engine, my dear aunt,” said Adrian.  “He isn’t a boy, or a man, but an engine.  And he appears to have been at high pressure since he came to town—­out all day and half the night.”

“He’s mad!” Mrs. Doria interjected.

“Not at all.  Extremely shrewd is Master Ricky, and carries as open an eye ahead of him as the ships before Troy.  He’s more than a match for any of us.  He is for me, I confess.”

“Then,” said Mrs. Doria, “he does astonish me!”

Adrian begged her to retain her astonishment till the right season, which would not be long arriving.

Their common wisdom counselled them not to tell the Foreys of their hopeful relative’s ungracious behaviour.  Clare had left them.  When Mrs. Doria went to her room her daughter was there, gazing down at something in her hand, which she guiltily closed.

In answer to an inquiry why she had not gone to take off her things, Clare said she was not hungry.  Mrs. Doria lamented the obstinacy of a constitution that no quantity of iron could affect, and eclipsed the looking-glass, saying:  “Take them off here, child, and learn to assist yourself.”

She disentangled her bonnet from the array of her spreading hair, talking of Richard, and his handsome appearance, and extraordinary conduct.  Clare kept opening and shutting her hand, in an attitude half-pensive, half-listless.  She did not stir to undress.  A joyless dimple hung in one pale cheek, and she drew long even breaths.

Mrs. Doria, assured by the glass that she was ready to show, came to her daughter.