‘Heaven bless the little innocent! One would suppose she had fallen ill on purpose to bring about my acquaintance with her most unapproachable mother. Don’t you remember my telling you that Mrs. Bertram has a little girl—a red-legged angel, after Millais?’ ‘O, yes, by the way, there was a child,’ said Lucius indifferently. Then warming as he contemplated the case in its professional aspect, ‘She is not very ill, I hope?’ ‘Scarlatina,’ replied Geoffrey. ‘But she seems to be mending to-night.’ ‘Scarlatina!’ exclaimed Lucius; ‘and you brought me down to Stillmington to see a case of scarlatina, which any local apothecary would understand just as well as I!’ ‘You dear old fellow! don’t be angry. It wasn’t so much the scarlatina. I wanted you to see Mrs. Bertram. I wanted you to see with your own eyes that the woman I love is worthy of any man’s affection.’ ‘And, you think I should be in a position to decide that question after half-an-hour’s acquaintance? A question which has taken some men a lifetime to solve, and which some have left unanswered at their death. No, Geoff, I don’t pretend to be wiser than other men where a woman’s character is in question. And if my instinct warned me against your enchantress, and if I should advise you speedily to forget her, how much do you think my counsel would influence you?’ ‘Not much, I’m afraid, Lucius. It wouldn’t be very easy for me to cast off her thrall. I am her willing bondslave. Nothing less than the knowledge that she is unworthy of my love—that her past life holds some dishonourable secret—would change my purpose. She has left my letters unanswered, she has rejected my offered devotion, and with something like scorn; yet there has been a look in her face, more transient than an April sunbeam, that has given me hope. I mean to hold on—I mean to win her love—in spite of herself, if need be.’ He gave a brief sketch of that little scene in the garden, his audacity, her almost contemptuous indifference; and then explained how Fortune, or, as he put it, the scarlatina, had smiled upon him. ‘And you think, notwithstanding her affected indifference, that she loves you?’ ‘Loves is too strong a word. What have I done to merit her love, except follow her as a collie follows a flock of sheep? What is there in me to deserve or attract her love? I am not ravishingly beautiful. I do not sing with a heart-penetrating voice. It is only natural I should worship her. It is the old story of the moon and the water brooks.’ ‘But you talked about a look which gave you hope.’