Christian had to postpone till after dinner the talk he purposed about Mrs. Palmer.  When that time came, he was no longer disposed for sentimental confessions; it would be better to wait until he could announce a settled project of marriage.  Through the evening, his sister recurred to the subject of Janet with curious frequency, and on the following day her interest had suffered no diminution.  Christian had always taken for granted that she understood the grounds of the breach between him and his uncle; without ever unbosoming himself, he had occasionally, in his softer moments, alluded to the awkward subject in language which he thought easy enough to interpret.  Now at length, in reply to some remark of Marcella’s, he said with significant accent: 

‘Janet was very friendly to me.’

‘She has studied science for ten years,’ was his sister’s comment.

‘Yes, and can forgive a boy’s absurdities.’

‘Easier to forgive, certainly, than those of a man,’ said Marcella, with a curl of the lip.

Christian became silent, and went thoughtfully away.

A week later, he was again in Mrs. Palmer’s drawing-room, where again he met an assemblage of people such as seemed to profane this sanctuary.  To be sure—­he said to himself—­Constance could not at once get rid of the acquaintances forced upon her by her husband; little by little she would free herself.  It was a pity that her sister and her niece—­persons anything but intelligent and refined —­should be permanent members of her household; for their sake, no doubt, she felt constrained to welcome men and women for whose society she herself had little taste.  But when the year of her widowhood was past——­Petrarch’s Laura was the mother of eleven children; Constance had had only three, and one of these was dead.  The remaining two, Christian now learnt, lived with a governess in a little house at Bournemouth, which Mrs. Palmer had taken for that purpose.

‘I’m going down to see them to-morrow,’ she informed Christian, ’and I shall stay there over the next day.  It’s so quiet and restful.’

These words kept repeating themselves to Christian’s ear, as he went home, and all through the evening.  Were they not an invitation?  Down there at Bournemouth, Constance would be alone the day after to-morrow.  ‘It is so quiet and restful;’ that was to say, no idle callers would break upon her retirement; she would be able to welcome a friend, and talk reposefully with him.  Surely she must have meant that; for she spoke with a peculiar intonation—­a look ——­

By the second morning he had worked himself up to a persuasion that yonder by the seaside Constance was expecting him.  To miss the opportunity would be to prove himself dull of apprehension, a laggard in love.  With trembling hands, he hurried through his toilet and made haste downstairs to examine a railway time-table.  He found it was possible to reach Bournemouth by about two o’clock, a very convenient hour; it would allow him to take refreshment, and walk to the house shortly after three.