Lavinia is thankful to him for his timely interposition; yet it frightens her. Why should he come to her help? Can he have any intuition or knowledge of her sore need of it? and by what creepy coincidence has he used the exact phrase employed by Binning yesterday in connection with himself: “An ounce of superfluous flesh”? There is in reality nothing to excite wonder in the employment of so common a turn of expression; but to a soul so guilty the most ordinary sentence seems heavy with ominous significance, and she hurries out her own less tactful repartee with needless treading on the heels of her cousin’s. “And how many stone have _you_ lost?” Sir George looks bored. “Thank you, my dear; but we need not bandy civilities on the subject of our infirmities.” Then with a quick and determined return to amiability, “Come, let us hear all about poor Binning? He went yesterday?” “No; this morning.” “Poor chap! I should like to have shaken his hand again before he went. I tried to persuade this slug of a fellow to run down and see the last of him, but he pretended that he was afraid to leave me. I must tell you that his filial piety has become a most appalling nuisance, and that he is like nothing in the world but an old hen with one duckling.” “I proudly own to the ‘old hen,’ but I fail to see the duckling,” replies Rupert, with a pleasant slight smile. Formerly he would have been far too nervous to bandy jokes with his father, and they would have been stamped upon if he had; but the answering smile on the elder man’s grim sick face tells Lavinia upon how much happier terms son and father now are than in any previous period of their lives. She is the ribbon that ties their hearts together! _She!_ “Was he pretty fit? Did he set off in good spirits?” asks Sir George, holding on as firmly to the Binning theme as if he knew that he was passionately desired to loose it. “Féodorovna did not say.” “Féodorovna!” repeats he, with that snort of disgust with which he has never failed to salute Miss Prince’s name ever since the day of her storming his study. “Yes; she came here this morning.” “Whom did she come to console _this_ time?” asks he, jeeringly. “_You?_ Well,” in a changed and softened key, “I dare say she did not make such a bad shot! I dare say you had grown quite fond of the poor chap from having nursed him; one _does_ get fond of one’s nurse, with the best intentions in the world to the contrary,” with a grudgingly affectionate glance at Rupert. His son smiles again. (How enviable! how miraculous to have such a cheerful light heart!) “You are in a fine flow of conversation!” he says, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “But you know as well as I do that you will have to pay dearly for it, if you do not take your usual rest before dinner. Your room is ready, and _I_ am ready; and _you_ are ready, aren’t you?”