her mind on Harry Oxford.  To be able to speak his name and see him awaiting her, must have been relief, a reprieve.  She did not waver, she cut the links, she signed herself over.  Oh, brave girl! what do you think of me?  But I have no Harry Whitford, I am alone.  Let anything be said against women; we must be very bad to have such bad things written of us:  only, say this, that to ask them to sign themselves over by oath and ceremony, because of an ignorant promise, to the man they have been mistaken in, is . . . it is—­” the sudden consciousness that she had put another name for Oxford, struck her a buffet, drowning her in crimson.

CHAPTER XI

THE DOUBLE-BLOSSOM WILD CHERRY-TREE

Sir Willoughby chose a moment when Clara was with him and he had a good retreat through folding-windows to the lawn, in case of cogency on the enemy’s part, to attack his cousin regarding the preposterous plot to upset the family by a scamper to London:  “By the way, Vernon, what is this you’ve been mumbling to everybody save me, about leaving us to pitch yourself into the stew-pot and be made broth of?  London is no better, and you are fit for considerably better.  Don’t, I beg you, continue to annoy me.  Take a run abroad, if you are restless.  Take two or three months, and join us as we are travelling home; and then think of settling, pray.  Follow my example, if you like.  You can have one of my cottages, or a place built for you.  Anything to keep a man from destroying the sense of stability about one.  In London, my dear old fellow, you lose your identity.  What are you there?  I ask you, what?  One has the feeling of the house crumbling when a man is perpetually for shifting and cannot fix himself.  Here you are known, you can study at your ease; up in London you are nobody; I tell you honestly, I feel it myself, a week of London literally drives me home to discover the individual where I left him.  Be advised.  You don’t mean to go.”

“I have the intention,” said Vernon.

“Why?”

“I’ve mentioned it to you.”

“To my face?”

“Over your shoulder is generally the only chance you give me.”

“You have not mentioned it to me, to my knowledge.  As to the reason, I might hear a dozen of your reasons, and I should not understand one.  It’s against your interests and against my wishes.  Come, friend, I am not the only one you distress.  Why, Vernon, you yourself have said that the English would be very perfect Jews if they could manage to live on the patriarchal system.  You said it, yes, you said it!—­but I recollect it clearly.  Oh, as for your double-meanings, you said the thing, and you jeered at the incapacity of English families to live together, on account of bad temper; and now you are the first to break up our union!  I decidedly do not profess to be a perfect Jew, but I do . . .”

Sir Willoughby caught signs of a probably smiling commerce between his bride and his cousin.  He raised his face, appeared to be consulting his eyelids, and resolved to laugh:  “Well, I own it.  I do like the idea of living patriarchally.”  He turned to Clara.  “The Rev. Doctor one of us!”