This allusion scared Mr. Pole from the egg.  He quitted the table, muttering, “Business! business!” and went to the library.

When he was gone Mrs. Chump gave a cry to know where Braintop was, but, forgetting him immediately, turned to the ladies and ejaculated, “Broth’m.  It’s just brothin’ he wants.  Broth, I say, for anny man that won’t eat his chop or his egg.  And, my dears, now, what do ye say to me for bringing him home to ye?  I expect to be thanked, I do; and then we’ll broth Pole together, till he’s lusty as a prize-ox, and capers like a monkey.”

Wretched woman! that could not see the ruin she had inflicted—­that could not imagine how her bitter breath cut against those sensitive skins!  During a short pause little Mrs. Lupin trotted to the door, and shot through it, in a paroxysm.

Then Wilfrid’s voice was heard.  He leaned against a corner of the window, and spoke without directly looking at Mrs. Chump; so that she was some time in getting to understand the preliminary, “Madam, you must leave this house.”  But presently her chin dropped; and after feeble efforts to interpose an exclamation, she sat quiet—­overcome by the deliberate gravity of his manner, and motioning despairingly with her head, to relieve the swarm of unborn figure-less ideas suggested by his passing speech.  The ladies were ranged like tribunal shapes.  It could not be said of souls so afflicted that they felt pleasure in the scene; but to assist in the administration of a rigorous justice is sweet to them that are smarting.  They scarcely approved his naked statement of things when he came to Mrs. Chump’s particular aspiration in the household—­viz., to take a station and the dignity of their name.  The effect he produced satisfied them that the measure was correct.  Her back gave a sharp bend, as if an eternal support had snapped.  “Oh! ye hit hard,” she moaned.

“I tell you kindly that we (who, you will acknowledge, must count for something here) do not sanction any change that revolutionizes our domestic relations,” said Wilfrid; while Mrs. Chump heaved and rolled on the swell of the big words like an overladen boat.  “You have only to understand so much, and this—­that if we resist it, as we do, you, by continuing to contemplate it, are provoking a contest which will probably injure neither you nor me, but will be death to ham in his present condition.”

Mrs. Chump was heard to mumble that she alone knew the secret of restoring him to health, and that he was rendered peaky and poky only by people supposing him so.

“An astonishin’ thing!” she burst out.  “If I kiss ’m and say ‘Poor Pole!’ he’s poor Pole on the spot.  And, if onnly I—­”

But Wilfrid’s stern voice flowed over her.  “Listen, madam, and let this be finished between us.  You know well that when a man has children, he may wish to call another woman wife—­a woman not their mother; but the main question is, will his children consent to let her take that place?  We are of one mind, and will allow no one—­no one—­to assume that position.  And now, there’s an end.  We’ll talk like friends.  I have only spoken in that tone that you might clearly comprehend me on an important point.  I know you entertain a true regard for my father, and it is that belief which makes me—­”