Prudently he hastened to bring the talk back to the road again. And she took courage to steal a look at him when his eyes were elsewhere. He seemed so strong and gentle and courteous; this unknown creature which she had been taught to fear. And he was so thoughtful of her! He could throw so tender a note into his voice. Beside d’Orsay or Alvanley—but she had never heard of them—he might have passed muster but tolerably; but to her he seemed a very fine gentleman. She had a woman’s eye for the fineness of his linen, and the smartness of his waistcoat—had not Sir James Graham, with his chest of Palermo stuffs, set the seal of Cabinet approval on fancy waistcoats? Nor was she blind to the easy carriage of his head, and his air of command. And there she caught herself up: reflecting with a blush that it was by the easy path of thoughts such as these that the precipice was approached; that so it was the poor and pretty let themselves be led from the right road. Whither was she travelling? In what was this to end? She trembled. And if they had not at that moment swung out of Savernake Forest and sighted the red roofs of Marlborough, lying warm and sung at the foot of the steep London Hill, she did not know what she should have done, since she could not repulse him. They rattled in merry style through the town, the leaders cantering, the bars swinging, the guard tootling, the sun shining; past a score of inn signs before which the heavy stages were baiting; past the two churches, while all the brisk pleasantness of this new, this living world, appealed to her to go its way. Ta-ra-ra! Ta-ra-ra! Swerving to the right they pulled up bravely, with steaming horses, before the door of the far-famed Castle Inn. Ta-ra-ra! Ta-ra-ra! “Half an hour for dinner, gentlemen!” “Now,” said Vaughan, thinking that all was well, or rather declining to think of anything but her shy glances and the delightful present. “You must cut my meat for me!” She did not reply, and he saw that her eyes went to the basket at her feet. He guessed that she wished to avoid the expense of dining. “Or, perhaps, you are not coming in?” he said. “I did not intend to do so,” she replied. “I suppose,” she continued timidly, “that I may stay here?” “Certainly. You have something with you?” “Yes.” He nodded pleasantly and left her; and she remained in her seat. As she ate, the target for many a sly glance of admiration, she was divided between gratitude and self-reproach; now thinking of him with a quickened heart, now taking herself to task for her weakness. The result was that when he strode out, confident and at ease, and looked up at her with laughing eyes, she blushed furiously—to her own unspeakable mortification.