“You think it will have no result?”

“None at all.”

“Her listening will do.”

“And you must be satisfied with it.”

“We shall see.”

“‘Anything for peace’, she says:  and I don’t say that a gentleman with a tongue would not have a chance.  She wishes to please you.”

“Old Vernon has no tongue for women, poor fellow!  You will have us be spider or fly, and if a man can’t spin a web all he can hope is not to be caught in one.  She knows his history, too, and that won’t be in his favour.  How did she look when you left them?”

“Not so bright:  like a bit of china that wants dusting.  She looked a trifle gauche, it struck me; more like a country girl with the hoyden taming in her than the well-bred creature she is.  I did not suspect her to have feeling.  You must remember, Sir Willoughby, that she has obeyed your wishes, done her utmost:  I do think we may say she has made some amends; and if she is to blame she repents, and you will not insist too far.”

“I do insist,” said he.

“Beneficent, but a tyrant!”

“Well, well.”  He did not dislike the character.

They perceived Dr. Middleton wandering over the lawn, and Willoughby went to him to put him on the wrong track:  Mrs. Mountstuart swept into the drawing-room.  Willoughby quitted the Rev. Doctor, and hung about the bower where he supposed his pair of dupes had by this time ceased to stutter mutually:—­or what if they had found the word of harmony?  He could bear that, just bear it.  He rounded the shrubs, and, behold, both had vanished.  The trellis decorated emptiness.  His idea was, that they had soon discovered their inability to be turtles:  and desiring not to lose a moment while Clara was fretted by the scene, he rushed to the drawing-room with the hope of lighting on her there, getting her to himself, and finally, urgently, passionately offering her the sole alternative of what she had immediately rejected.  Why had he not used passion before, instead of limping crippled between temper and policy?  He was capable of it:  as soon as imagination in him conceived his personal feelings unwounded and unimperiled, the might of it inspired him with heroical confidence, and Clara grateful, Clara softly moved, led him to think of Clara melted.  Thus anticipating her he burst into the room.

One step there warned him that he was in the jaws of the world.  We have the phrase, that a man is himself under certain trying circumstances.  There is no need to say it of Sir Willoughby:  he was thrice himself when danger menaced, himself inspired him.  He could read at a single glance the Polyphemus eye in the general head of a company.  Lady Busshe, Lady Culmer, Mrs. Mountstuart, Mr. Dale, had a similarity in the variety of their expressions that made up one giant eye for him perfectly, if awfully, legible.  He discerned the fact that his demon secret was abroad, universal.  He ascribed it to fate.  He was in the jaws of the world, on the world’s teeth.  This time he thought Laetitia must have betrayed him, and bowing to Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer, gallantly pressing their fingers and responding to their becks and archnesses, he ruminated on his defences before he should accost her father.  He did not want to be alone with the man, and he considered how his presence might be made useful.