“We really must go now,” said Bell, “because of the horses.”  And under this excuse they got away.

“You will come over before you go back to London, John?” said Lily, as he came out with the intention of helping her mount, from which purpose, however, he was forced to recede by the iron will of Mr Crosbie.

“Yes, I’ll come over again—­before I go.  Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, John,” said Bell.  “Good-bye, Eames,” said Captain Dale.  Crosbie, as he seated himself in the saddle, made the very slightest sign of recognition, to which his rival would not condescend to pay any attention.  “I’ll manage to have a fight with him in some way,” said Eames to himself as he walked back through the passage of his mother’s house.  And Crosbie, as he settled his feet in the stirrups, felt that he disliked the young man more and more.  It would be monstrous to suppose that there could be aught of jealousy in the feeling; and yet he did dislike him very strongly, and felt almost angry with Lily for asking him to come again to Allington.  “I must put an end to all that,” he said to himself as he rode silently out of town.

“You must not snub my friends, sir,” said Lily, smiling as she spoke, but yet with something of earnestness in her voice.  They were out of the town by this time, and Crosbie had hardly uttered a word since they had left Mrs Eames’s door.  They were now on the high road, and Bell and Bernard Dale were somewhat in advance of them.

“I never snub anybody,” said Crosbie, petulantly; “that is unless they have absolutely deserved snubbing.”

“And have I deserved it?  Because I seem to have got it,” said Lily.

“Nonsense, Lily.  I never snubbed you yet, and I don’t think it likely that I shall begin.  But you ought not to accuse me of not being civil to your friends.  In the first place I am as civil to them as my nature will allow me to be.  And, in the second place—­”

“Well; in the second place—?”

“I am not quite sure that you are very wise to encourage that young man’s friendship just at present.”

“That means, I suppose, that I am very wrong to do so?”

“No, dearest, it does not mean that.  If I meant so I would tell you so honestly.  I mean just what I say.  There can, I suppose, be no doubt that he has filled himself with some kind of romantic attachment for you,—­a foolish kind of love which I don’t suppose he ever expected to gratify, but the idea of which lends a sort of grace to his life.  When he meets some young woman fit to be his wife he will forget all about it, but till then he will go about fancying himself a despairing lover.  And then such a young man as John Eames is very apt to talk of his fancies.”

“I don’t believe for a moment that he would mention my name to any one.”

“But, Lily, perhaps I may know more of young men than you do.”

“Yes, of course you do.”

“And I can assure you that they are generally too well inclined to make free with the names of girls whom they think that they like.  You must not be surprised if I am unwilling that any man should make free with your name.”