Here was another and important embarrassment and difficulty in their way. They did not know that Durant’s day’s occupation had been so very important to himself as to eclipse all other interests. They thought he would come back next day to search thoroughly, and make sure that they did not escape him. For to Nancy in the present crisis it was evident that nothing else could be half so important; her own affairs naturally appeared to her the most likely subject to absorb Durant’s thoughts. CHAPTER X. The explanation between Durant and Lucy, of which Nancy had been, so to speak, a spectator, and which had filled her with such doubtful feelings, before the moment when she apprehended peril to herself--had taken place under difficulties. It was only when driven up into a corner by his repeated appeals that Lady Curtis had given a doubtful and reluctant assent--it did not deserve so cordial a title as consent--to his petition--which was only that he might be allowed to refer the question to Lucy herself. “If she says no, there will not be another word to say,” he had represented. Lady Curtis had only replied by shaking her head, a gesture which filled him with exhilaration, though after all it might have meant something different from the conclusion he drew from it. But after the confused meal, which he was so anxious to get over and so impatient of, it was some time before Lucy’s attention could be secured. She was coy and unwilling, and half-angry, he thought, while her mother, though so affectionate to himself, would have been glad enough to stave off the interview which she had reluctantly promised might take place between them. She would not go back from her word; but if she could manage to get it postponed, deferred till the last moment, Lady Curtis would have felt that something was gained. And things seemed to fall out in harmony with her purpose as the afternoon went on. Sir John took possession of Durant in the first place to show him something, and then Lady Curtis managed to keep by Lucy’s side, hoping that the time at which he had settled to leave them would have come too near for any explanation before the opportunity came. But Durant was not the kind of man to be so baffled by circumstances. When he saw the policy she was pursuing (and which, with an hypocrisy which half-maddened, half-amused, half-touched him, she seemed to confess and beg pardon for, with deprecating beseeching looks) he broke openly through the maze she was entangling his feet in. He went up to Lucy boldly as she sat by her mother’s side. “There is something that I want to say to you,” he said, with a tremulousness very unlike his usual steady tones. “Your mother has permitted me to ask you--to hear me--” “Do not say that, Lewis, do not say that,” cried Lady Curtis. “I could not forbid it--that was all.”