“Oh, I’ve seen the sort of distance she has put on; all superficial, my dear sir.  I read it in your favor.  I know the sex; they can’t elude me.  Pique, sir—­nothing on earth but female pique.  She is bitter against us for shilly-shallying.  These girls hate shilly-shally in a man.  They are monopolists—­severe monopolists; shilly-shally is one of their monopolies.  Throw yourself at her feet, and press her with ardor; she will clear up directly.”  The proposed attitude did not tempt the stiff Talboys.  His pride took the alarm.

“Thank you.  It is a position in which I should not care to place myself unless I was quite sure of not being refused.  No, I will not risk my proposal while she is under the influence of this Dodd; he is, somehow or other, the cause of her coldness to me.”

“Good heavens! why, she has been hermetically sealed against him ever so long,” cried Fountain, almost angrily.

“I saw his sister come out of your gate only the other day.  Sisters are emissaries—­dangerous ones, too.  Who knows? her very coldness may be vexation that this man is excluded.  Perhaps she suspects me as the cause.”

“These are chimeras—­wild chimeras.  My niece cares nothing for such people as the Dodds.”

“I beg your pardon; these low attachments are the strongest.  It is a notorious fact.”

“There is no attachment; there is nothing but civility, and the affability of a well-bred superior to an inferior.  Attachment! why, there is not a girl in Europe less capable of marrying beneath her; and she is too cold to flirt—–­but with a view to matrimonial position.  The worst of it is, that, while you fear an imaginary danger, you are running into a real one.  If we are defeated it will not be by Dodd, but by that Mrs. Bazalgette.  Why, now I think of it, whence does Lucy’s coldness date?  From that viper’s visit to my house.  Rely on it, if we are suffering from any rival influence, it is that woman’s.  She is a dangerous woman—­she is a character I detest—­she is a schemer.”

“Am I to understand that Mrs. Bazalgette has views of her own for Miss Fountain?” inquired Talboys, his jealousy half inclined to follow the new lead.

“In all probability.”

“Oh, then it is mere surmise.”

“No, it is not mere surmise; it is the reasonable conjecture of a man who knows her sex, and human nature, and life.  Since I have my views, what more likely than that she has hers, if only to spite me?  Add to this her strange visit to Font Abbey, and the somber influence she has left behind.  And to this woman Lucy is going unprotected by any positive pledge to you.  Here is the true cause for anxiety.  And if you do not share it with me, it must be that you do not care about our alliance.”