There is authority mixed with the pleasant persuasiveness of the tone, and with a docility which would have filled Lavinia with amazement in any other circumstances, Sir George hoists himself out of his chair, and saying, with an appealing lift of his shaggy eyebrows, “See how I am bullied!” walks slowly but contentedly off on his son’s arm. Once again Rupert has come to Lavinia’s rescue. Once again, left behind, she feels the sense of relief coupled with a great fear. How has he known the exact moment at which the catechism was becoming unbearable to her? the exact moment at which to step in? She has a quarter of an hour in which to supply answers “to taste,” in cookery-book phrase, to this question, and at the end of that time she has the opportunity of putting it, if she feels so disposed, to the person to whom it refers; for he rejoins her. “I have left him; he will have a better chance of getting to sleep if he is alone. He is so excited that he will go on talking if he has any one to listen to him. I could not stop him.” “And yet you seem to have wonderful power over him! I never saw such a change!” She has got behind a cane chair, and is tilting it up, with her hands clutching the gilt top. She ought not to let him see the sickly apprehension in her eyes; and yet if she does not, if she allows him to approach her, if he kisses her, and expects her to kiss him back, by what hair’s breadth will she be separated from the outcasts in the street? There is gross exaggeration in the idea, which is weighted by the offended purity of all her former life; yet there is truth too. But Rupert’s steps pause far short of her barrier, and there is neither a claiming of undoubted rights, neither enterprise nor even entreaty in his eyes. “Improvement, should you say?” he asks, with cool interest; adding, “How do you think he looks--better or worse than you expected?” “Better--worse!” she stammers, contradicting herself, quite put off her balance by the fraternal ease and matter-of-factness of his tone. It seems like a return to the blessed brotherly period, before they had been driven into exchanging the airy chains of their phantom engagement for the gyves and handcuffs of a real one. After all, he had been driven into it as much as she! There is balm in the thought. “I mean I cannot quite make up my mind until he has settled down; he is certainly much thinner.” “Yes; his clothes hang a bit loose upon him.” Lavinia starts; imperceptibly, she hopes. Has Rupert given himself the word to use no phrase that does not bring Binning in very self before her? Binning’s clothes, too, hang loose upon him. Lest her start should _not_ have been imperceptible, she covers it quickly with a remark. “He seems in excellent spirits.”