speaking, and after she had ended, still gazed on her, with his heart in his mouth. “I don’t wish,” he said at last, “to do anything rash. I will submit to anything rather than run any risks. But how are we to bear the delay? How am I to bear it? and it will be deception as well! I don’t see how I am to do it. Do you mean me to give her up all the time--go tiger-shooting, as you were good enough to suggest?” “Well--there would be no harm in that,” said the Duchess, with a smile; “but I did not suggest it in the present circumstances. I said, if you had spoken to me first--I ask you to wait a month--perhaps two” (this addition, made as it seemed in _gaieté de cœur_, with rather a pleasant sense of the exasperation it would produce in him, called forth a muttered exclamation, a groan from the victim)--“or perhaps two at the most,” the Duchess repeated; “whereas tiger-shooting would take six at least. But, Mr Winton, I repeat, I force you to nothing. There is the bell, and the Duke is in the library. Ring it if you will, and ask him to see you; he will not refuse.” Winton rose slowly and went towards the bell. But he had not the courage to take this extreme step. “I suppose I may see her sometimes?” he said; “but it will be a kind of treachery.” “Her mother does not object; the case is an extreme one,” said the Duchess, though she blushed a little at her own sophistry. “What he does not know will not do him any harm.” “It will be deception,” said Winton, shaking his head, and he made another step towards the bell. Then he turned back again. “How often may I see her? If we take your way, you will not be hard upon us?” he said. “But it will be deception,” said the Duchess, solemnly. “I know that; that is what revolts me. Still, as you say, what he does not know will not do him any harm.” The Duchess laughed, and then she grew grave suddenly. “Mr Winton, I feel as if I were betraying my husband; but at the present moment my child has the first claim upon me. It is her happiness that is at stake. I will not prevent you from meeting--you are both old enough to know your own minds. I will do nothing to put off Jane from a woman’s natural career. It is doing evil, perhaps, that good may come; but we must risk it. Come here, but not too often: I will take the responsibility; and when we go to Billings, Lady Germaine will invite you, and you can try your fortune then. I will prepare the way as much as I can. I don’t give you great hopes when all is done,” she said, shaking her head. “And after?” said Winton, turning once more with a kind of desperation towards the bell. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” said the Duchess, piously.