give them time to call back their scattered powers. At
the hour of eleven he sent for Arabella to come to him in the library.
The council upstairs permitted Arabella to go, on the understanding that
she was prepared for hostilities, and ready to tear the mask from
Wilfrid's face.

He commenced, without a shadow of circumlocution, and in a matter-of-fact
way, as if all respect for the peculiar genius of the house of Pole had
vanished: "I sent for you to talk a word or two about this woman, who, I
see, troubles you a little. I'm sorry she's in the house."

"Indeed!" said Arabella.

"I'm sorry she's in the house, not for my sake, but for yours, since the
proximity does not seem to... I needn't explain. It comes of your eternal
consultations. You are the eldest. Why not act according to your
judgement, which is generally sound? You listen to Adela, young as she
is; or a look of Cornelia's leads you. The result is the sort of scene I
saw this afternoon. I confess it has changed my opinion of you; it has, I
grieve to say it. This woman is your father's guest; you can't hurt her
so much as you hurt him, if you misbehave to her. You can't openly object
to her and not cast a slur upon him. There is the whole case. He has
insisted, and you must submit. You should have fought the battle before
she came."

"She is here, owing to a miserable misconception," said Arabella.

"Ah! she is here, however. That is the essential, as your old governess
Madame Timpan would have said."

"Nor can a protest against coarseness be sweepingly interpreted as a
piece of unfilial behaviour," said Arabella.

"She is coarse," Wilfrid nodded his head. "There are some forms of
coarseness which dowagers would call it coarseness to notice.

"Not if you find it locked up in the house with you--not if you suffer
under a constant repulsion. Pray, do not use these phrases to me,
Wilfrid. An accusation of coarseness cannot touch us."

"No, certainly," assented Wilfrid. "And you have a right to protest. I
disapprove the form of your protest nothing more. A schoolgirl's...but
you complain of the use of comparisons."

"I complain, Wilfrid, of your want of sympathy."

"That for two or three weeks you must hear a brogue at your elbow? The
poor creature is not so bad; she is good-hearted. It's hard that you
should have to bear with her for that time and receive nothing better
than Besworth as your reward."

"Very; seeing that we endure the evil and decl