“Indeed, you have interrupted nothing,” said Edgar. “Mr. Tottenham, I don’t know why, left me here with this--lady, while he went to make some inquiries about her; he will return directly. She had offered to explain her case, of which I knew nothing, to me,” he continued, with an embarrassed laugh, feeling himself grow red against his will. What did it matter to Lady Augusta whom he might converse with? But, notwithstanding, her manner was as that of a woman offended, and forming an unfavourable judgment, and Edgar was affected by this unspoken judgment in spite of himself. Then a pause ensued. Miss Lockwood had glided out of the room with her long train rustling, but no other sound, and Lady Augusta, like other less exalted persons, did not know what to say to carry on this curious conversation. She was not sufficiently in friendship with Edgar to say anything further to him on this subject, either as warning or reproving, and there was an awkward pause. He would have liked to put a hundred questions, but did not know how to begin. “I hope all are well,” he said at last, with some timidity. “Oh, quite well. There have been various changes in the family, as no doubt you have heard; and more are in prospect,” Lady Augusta said pointedly: “That is the worst of grown-up sons and daughters. After twenty, their father and mother have very little enjoyment of them. I was not aware you knew my brother-in-law.” This she said with something of a jerk, having forestalled all possible inquiry on Edgar’s side, as she thought. “I only met him a few days ago,” said Edgar. “Perhaps I had better tell you at once my position in respect to him. He has offered me the post of tutor to his boy; and having nothing to do for the moment, poor as my qualifications are, I have accepted it. I need not tell you, who know them, how kind to me both he and Lady Mary have been.” “Tutor to--his boy!” Lady Augusta repeated the words, thunderstruck. This was something more terrible, more alarming than she had conceived possible. “Tutor to Phil?” She did not seem able to do more than repeat the words. “You may well be surprised,” said Edgar, trying to laugh; “no one could be more so than myself; but as they were so good as to overlook my deficiencies, what could I say?” “I was not thinking of your deficiencies. Oh! Mr. Earnshaw, oh! Edgar, could not your old friends have helped you to something better than this?” Poor Lady Augusta! she was unfeignedly grieved and sorry to think of him as a dependent. And at the same time she was struck with terror unbounded to think that he would now be always in her way, in Gussy’s way, never to be got rid of. She was not fond of exercising what influence she possessed lavishly, for she had many sons and nephews; but she began to reflect immediately what she could do to promote Edgar’s interests. A tutor, and in Tottenham’s, for ever; or in Berkeley Square, always at hand, never to be got rid of--