"Commission me: I will see that he listens." "And go back? Oh, no! To London! Besides, there is the dining with Mrs. Mountstuart this evening; and I like her very well, but I must avoid her. She has a kind of idolatry . . . And what answers can I give? I supplicate her with looks. She observes them, my efforts to divert them from being painful produce a comic expression to her, and I am a charming 'rogue', and I am entertained on the topic she assumes to be principally interesting me. I must avoid her. The thought of her leaves me no choice. She is clever. She could tattoo me with epigrams." "Stay . . . there you can hold your own." "She has told me you give me credit for a spice of wit. I have not discovered my possession. We have spoken of it; we call it your delusion. She grants me some beauty; that must be hers." "There's no delusion in one case or the other, Miss Middleton. You have beauty and wit; public opinion will say, wildness: indifference to your reputation will be charged on you, and your friends will have to admit it. But you will be out of this difficulty." "Ah--to weave a second?" "Impossible to judge until we see how you escape the first. And I have no more to say. I love your father. His humour of sententiousness and doctorial stilts is a mask he delights in, but you ought to know him and not be frightened by it. If you sat with him an hour at a Latin task, and if you took his hand and told him you could not leave him, and no tears!--he would answer you at once. It would involve a day or two further; disagreeable to you, no doubt: preferable to the present mode of escape, as I think. But I have no power whatever to persuade. I have not the 'lady's tongue'. My appeal is always to reason." "It is a compliment. I loathe the 'lady's tongue'." "It's a distinctly good gift, and I wish I had it. I might have succeeded instead of failing, and appearing to pay a compliment." "Surely the express train is very late, Mr. Whitford?" "The express has gone by." "Then we will cross over." "You would rather not be seen by Mrs. Mountstuart. That is her carriage drawn up at the station, and she is in it." Clara looked, and with the sinking of her heart said: "I must brave her!" "In that case I will take my leave of you here, Miss Middleton." She gave him her hand. "Why is Mrs. Mountstuart at the station to-day?" "I suppose she has driven to meet one of the guests for her dinner-party. Professor Crooklyn was promised to your father, and he may be coming by the down-train." "Go back to the Hall!" exclaimed Clara. "How can I? I have no more endurance left in me. If I had some support!--if it were the sense of secretly doing wrong, it might help me through. I am in a web. I cannot do right, whatever I do. There is only the thought of saving Crossjay. Yes, and sparing papa.--Good-bye, Mr. Whitford. I shall remember your kindness gratefully. I cannot go back." "You will not?" said he, tempting her to hesitate. "No."