She was with him here, however, but to a certain point. “You mustn’t drag them out _too_ much--must you? Won’t he think in that case you may want to retract?” Yule apparently tried to focus Mr. Prodmore under this delusion, and with a success that had a quick, odd result. “I shouldn’t be so terribly upset by his mistake, you know, even if he did!” His manner, with its slight bravado, left her proportionately shocked. “Oh, it would never do to give him any colour whatever for supposing you to have any doubt that, as one may say, you’ve pledged your honour.” He devoted to this proposition more thought than its simplicity would have seemed to demand; but after a minute, at all events, his intelligence triumphed. “Of course not--not when I _haven’t_ any doubt!” Though his intelligence had triumphed, she still wished to show she was there to support it. “How can you _possibly_ have any--any more than you can possibly have that one’s honour is everything in life?” And her charming eyes expressed to him her need to feel that he was quite at one with her on _that_ point. He could give her every assurance. “Oh, yes--everything in life!” It did her much good, brought back the rest of her brightness. “Wasn’t it just of the question of the honour of things that we talked awhile ago--and of the difficulty of sometimes keeping our sense of it clear? There’s no more to be said therefore,” she went on with the faintest soft sigh about it, “except that I leave you to your ancient glory as I leave you to your strict duty.” She had these things there before her; they might have been a well-spread board from which she turned away fasting. “I hope you’ll do justice to dear old Covering in spite of its weak points, and I hope above all you’ll not be incommoded----” As she hesitated here he was too intent. “Incommoded----?” She saw it better than she could express it. “Well, by such a rage----!” He challenged this description with a strange gleam. “You suppose it will be a rage?” She laughed out at his look. “Are you afraid of the love that kills?” He grew singularly grave. “_Will_ it kill----?” “Great passions _have_!”--she was highly amused. But he could only stare. “Is it a great passion?” “Surely--when so many feel it!” He was fairly bewildered. “But how many----?” She reckoned them up. “Let’s see. If you count them all----” “‘All’?” Clement Yule gasped. She looked at him, in turn, slightly mystified. “I see. You knock off some. About half?” It was too obscure--he broke down. “Whom on earth are you talking about?” “Why, the electors----” “Of Gossage?”--he leaped at it. “Oh!” “I got the whole thing up--there are six thousand. It’s such a fine figure!” said Mrs. Gracedew. He had sharply passed from her, to cover his mistake, and it carried him half round the hall. Then, as if aware that this pause itself compromised him, he came back confusedly and with her last words in his ear. “_Has_ she a fine figure?”