“Laetitia?  I can’t part with her.”

Mrs. Mountstuart put a tooth on her under lip as her head renewed its brushing negative.

“In what way can it be hurtful that she should be here, ma’am?” he ventured to persist.

“Think.”

“She is proof.”

“Twice!”

The word was big artillery.  He tried the affectation of a staring stupidity.  She might have seen his heart thump, and he quitted the mask for an agreeable grimace.

“She is inaccessible.  She is my friend.  I guarantee her, on my honour.  Have no fear for her.  I beg you to have confidence in me.  I would perish rather.  No soul on earth is to be compared with her.”

Mrs. Mountstuart repeated “Twice!”

The low monosyllable, musically spoken in the same tone of warning of a gentle ghost, rolled a thunder that maddened him, but he dared not take it up to fight against it on plain terms.

“Is it for my sake?” he said.

“It will not do, Sir Willoughby.”

She spurred him to a frenzy.

“My dear Mrs. Mountstuart, you have been listening to tales.  I am not a tyrant.  I am one of the most easy-going of men.  Let us preserve the forms due to society:  I say no more.  As for poor old Vernon, people call me a good sort of cousin; I should like to see him comfortably married; decently married this time.  I have proposed to contribute to his establishment.  I mention it to show that the case has been practically considered.  He has had a tolerably souring experience of the state; he might be inclined if, say, you took him in hand, for another venture.  It’s a demoralizing lottery.  However, Government sanctions it.”

“But, Sir Willoughby, what is the use of my taking him in hand when, as you tell me, Laetitia Dale holds back?”

“She certainly does.”

“Then we are talking to no purpose, unless you undertake to melt her.”

He suffered a lurking smile to kindle to some strength of meaning.

“You are not over-considerate in committing me to such an office.”

“You are afraid of the danger?” she all but sneered.

Sharpened by her tone, he said, “I have such a love of stedfastness of character, that I should be a poor advocate in the endeavour to break it.  And frankly, I know the danger.  I saved my honour when I made the attempt:  that is all I can say.”

“Upon my word,” Mrs. Mountstuart threw back her head to let her eyes behold him summarily over their fine aquiline bridge, “you have the art of mystification, my good friend.”

“Abandon the idea of Laetitia Dale.”

“And marry your cousin Vernon to whom?  Where are we?”