‘You talk about what makes _him_ angry, as if it mattered. He deserves to be put to inconvenience. He does not deserve to be helped out of it. What becomes of Mr. Camm?’ ‘Oh, I have seen Roger. We understand each other. But don’t you want to hear all that I have to tell you? I have another piece of news.’ ‘What is it?’ she asked, feeling from the way in which he spoke that it must be news of some importance, and staying her anger to hear it. ‘Something else has happened, which ought to have made him forget his anger, one would think. I told him he ought to tell you about it, but he says he won’t; it is all between him and her. He does not feel inclined to talk about it, and, in short, I see you half guess already. Yes; it is quite true. He got engaged to Miss Wynter the other night.’ ‘Engaged—to—Miss—Wynter!’ Eleanor stared at him incredulously. ‘She took him—after what he had done?’ Gilbert laughed aloud. ‘She took him, it would appear. I thought you ought to be informed of it. Probably all the neighbourhood is gossiping over it by now, and you would have looked ridiculous if you had heard people talking about it, and had not understood.’ ‘I—oh, to be ridiculous is nothing, it seems to me, if one is not disgraceful,’ said Eleanor, and paused, because she could not help wondering what Gilbert felt about it himself. If she were to judge from his present manner, she would have said that he regarded it all from a superior standpoint, as a kind of joke amongst some unsophisticated creatures, whose habits it amused him to study; but, recollecting the very different tone he had lately taken, and his present avowed conviction that he thought it serious enough to come and tell her about it, since Otho would not, she felt that his motives were quite beyond her comprehension. So she ceased to speculate upon them, and turned her attention to another point. ‘It is all very extraordinary to me, and most disagreeable—the way in which it has been done,’ she said, and again caught the curious expression, half amusement, half—what? in Gilbert’s look. ‘You know them both much better than I do. Do you think it will be for his good?’ ‘In a way, I am sure it will. It is perfectly certain that whatever kind of woman Miss Wynter may be, as a woman, she is the only one who has, or ever had, any shadow of influence over him. She knows him thoroughly. She knows the frightful risks she is running,—perhaps she does not feel them frightful—and she knows the precarious state of his fortunes at the present time. With her eyes open she has taken him. If they would or could be married at once she might do a great deal to retrieve his affairs.’ ‘I did not mean that exactly,’ said Eleanor, going on with what she did mean, despite what seemed to her Gilbert’s look of mockery. ‘I was thinking more of the moral influence. I should have thought that a woman of higher mind—one who would have roused him to better things——’