st had gone up, after receiving a promise, meant sincerely, however
it might be kept, that 'poor Louis' should not be kept up late, James
began with a groan:

'Now that you are here to attend to my grandmother, I am going to
answer this advertisement for a curate near the Land's End.'

'Heyday!'

'It is beyond human endurance to see her daily and not to speak! I
should run wild! It would be using Lady Conway shamefully.'

'And some one else. What should hinder you from speaking?'

'You talk as if every one was heir to a peerage.'

'I know what I am saying. I do not see the way to your marriage just
yet, but it would be mere trifling with her feelings, after what has
passed already, not to give her the option of engaging herself.'

'I'm sure I don't know what I said! I was out of myself. I was
ashamed to remember that I had betrayed myself, and dared not guess
what construction she put on it.'

'Such a construction as could only come from her own heart!'

After some raptures, James added, attempting to be cool, 'You candidly
think I have gone so far, that I am bound in honour to make
explanation.'

'I am sure it would make her very unhappy if you went off in
magnanimous silence to the Land's End; and remaining as the boy's
tutor, without confession, would be a mere delusion and treachery
towards my aunt.'

'That woman!'

'She is not her mother.'

'Who knows how far she will think herself bound to obedience? With
that sort of relationship, nobody knows what to be at.'

'I don't think Isabel wishes to make her duty to Lady Conway more
stringent than necessary. They live in utterly different spheres; and,
at least, you can be no worse off than you are already.'

'I may be exposing her to annoyance. Women have ten million ways of
persecuting each other.'

'Had you seen Isabel's eye when she looked on the wild crowd, you would
know how little she would heed worse persecution than my poor aunt
could practise. It will soon be my turn to say you don't deserve her.'

James was arguing against his own impulse, and his scruples only
desired to be talked down; Louis's generous and inconsiderate ardour
prevailed, and, after interminable discussion, it was agreed that,
after some communication with the young lady herself, an interview
should be sought with Lady Conway, for which James was already
bristling, prepared to resent scorn with scorn.

In the morning, he was savage with shamefacedness, could no