‘Don’t trouble yourself about Otho,’ rejoined Gilbert, in the same tone, but in a still lower voice. ‘Do not let any thought of him disturb your enjoyment this evening.’ ‘Enjoyment; do you suppose I am expecting enjoyment!’ Eleanor had exclaimed almost before she knew what she was saying. ‘If you cannot have it, no one else deserves a grain of it,’ said Gilbert, deliberately. ‘But, really, I wish you would calm your fears. Just let us reason about it. What can Otho possibly do to-night, that can cause you any uneasiness? We shall go straight to the concert-room, and once there, he is safe.’ ‘He may not go at all.’ ‘Well, if he does not, you will; and why should you allow your mind to be engaged in imagining him doing something disagreeable? Your apprehensions are exaggerated, I assure you. Tell me what you are afraid of.’ ‘He said,’ replied Eleanor, almost in a whisper, so that Magdalen could not possibly hear, ‘that he would make her repent, and that before long. I thought he might, perhaps, if he went to-night, say or do something rude—or at dinner—I do not know what he will do when he looks so dangerous.’ Gilbert laughed a low laugh, speaking of amusement and enjoyment too. ‘Otho has other methods of punishing her,’ he said. ‘Do not alarm yourself; I will see to it. And’—he bent his head close to hers, and her fingers tightened one over the other—‘please excuse the question; but I always see two sides of a thing. Do you mean to tell me that you would be very sorry for her to be punished, a little, if it could be done unobtrusively?’ Gilbert certainly knew what he was about when he asked this question. The eyes that were suddenly lifted towards his own held confession in their glance. She shook her head silently; but the very silence implied that he had guessed aright. ‘I thought you might have whims for other things, as well as double violets,’ said Gilbert, with a slight smile, which made her feel that he was very much stronger than she was, and very much better acquainted with human nature. She was silent; but Gilbert had got an object to gain, and he said, ‘You owe me some little reward for having guessed so correctly. Won’t you tell me what you have done with those flowers?’ ‘I—oh, I left them in my room.’ ‘There to wither and die, I suppose? Poor things! I have a great weakness for flowers—those flowers, especially. If you dislike them, will you do me the cruel favour to return them? I mean it, really.’ ‘But I do not dislike them. I—it—I thought I would carry them in my hand to-night,’ she said, distracted at the extent of the concessions he was wringing from her, but perfectly aware that when he promised to see that Otho behaved himself, and then began instantly to talk about violets, he conveyed a hint which she must accept on pain of his displeasure. ‘You did! I could not possibly wish for more than that,’ he said, and there was triumph, intense, if repressed, in his smile and his tone.