“I feel rather like Jacob, having jockeyed Esau out of his occupation,” she says, talking somewhat at random; the more so for the consciousness that his eyes have done with her cap and apron, and now find employment in the string of pearls that, as both of them know, owes no ascription to Féodorovna. Involuntarily one of Lavinia’s hands goes up to her throat, with the impulse to hide the jewels, though a cold instinct tells her that he has already discovered their origin. “It is very hard upon my predecessor, isn’t it,” she says, beginning to talk much faster than her wont, “to have developed such an enthusiasm for nursing, and then to have her course barred by so odious a form of illness?” “Jaundice, isn’t it?” returns he, with a very respectable and even remorseful effort at regret. “Yes; jaundice.” “Poor soul!” Both read in each other’s hearts that, as between them, talk of Féodorovna is sheer waste of time; yet one of them clings convulsively to her as a safe topic. “What aggravates her vexation is that she can’t believe that you will not be starved and ill-used in her absence!” “Poor soul!” There is a touch of impatience that to one initiated speaks of past endurance in the repeated phrase; and the smile that sends up the corners of both their mouths, when Lavinia adds demurely, “I am to report progress every quarter of an hour,” makes them both feel rather guilty. It is the man who instinctively breaks away from the subject, and, as one determined to have his will, rushes headforemost into another. “Tell me how much time you are going to give me! I had rather know at once.” His eye seeks the travelling-clock standing on the table beside him, and as he turns somewhat to get an exacter view of it, she notes with how much greater ease and freedom he can move. “I have come to stay the night.” “_The night!_” “Yes; the night. My men have left me and gone to London.” She answers colourlessly, looking straight before her; but through her drooped eyelids her spirit sees the almost incredulous delight of his. There is a moment’s pause; next, in a long sigh of relief, come the words-- “Then we shall have time for everything!” She smiles with slow relish of and acquiescence in his thought, despite the apparent protest in her-- “That is rather comprehensive, isn’t it?” “I mean,” he continues, eagerly sitting up, and leaning on his elbow, “that after your former visits I have always felt that we--that I had not made the most of them; but that I had egotistically frittered away our time”--neither of them notes the significance of the plural pronoun--“talking of myself.” “Did you talk of yourself?” she asks. “I think your memory plays you false then. If you had, I should,” with embarrassed playfulness, “know more about you than I do.” “What do you know? What do you care to know?”