eakfast-room at a quarter to ten, after kissing her
father. Willoughby was behind her. He had been soothed by thinking of
his personal advantages over De Craye, and he felt assured that if he
could be solitary with his eccentric bride and fold her in himself, he
would, cutting temper adrift, be the man he had been to her not so many
days back. Considering how few days back, his temper was roused, but he
controlled it.

They were slightly dissenting as De Craye stepped into the hall.

"A present worth examining," Willoughby said to her: "and I do not
dwell on the costliness. Come presently, then. I am at your disposal
all day. I will drive you in the afternoon to call on Lady Busshe to
offer your thanks: but you must see it first. It is laid out in the
laboratory."

"There is time before the afternoon," said Clara.

"Wedding presents?" interposed De Craye.

"A porcelain service from Lady Busshe, Horace."

"Not in fragments? Let me have a look at it. I'm haunted by an idea
that porcelain always goes to pieces. I'll have a look and take a hint.
We're in the laboratory, Miss Middleton."

He put his arm under Willoughby's. The resistance to him was momentary:
Willoughby had the satisfaction of the thought that De Craye being with
him was not with Clara; and seeing her giving orders to her maid
Barclay, he deferred his claim on her company for some short period.

De Craye detained him in the laboratory, first over the China cups and
saucers, and then with the latest of London--tales of youngest Cupid
upon subterranean adventures, having high titles to light him.
Willoughby liked the tale thus illuminated, for without the title there
was no special savour in such affairs, and it pulled down his betters
in rank. He was of a morality to reprobate the erring dame while he
enjoyed the incidents. He could not help interrupting De Craye to point
at Vernon through the window, striding this way and that, evidently on
the hunt for young Crossjay. "No one here knows how to manage the boy
except myself But go on, Horace," he said, checking his contemptuous
laugh; and Vernon did look ridiculous, out there half-drenched already
in a white rain, again shuffled off by the little rascal. It seemed
that he was determined to have his runaway: he struck up the avenue at
full pedestrian racing pace.

"A man looks a fool cutting after a cricket-ball; but, putting on steam
in a storm of rain to catch a young villain out of sight, beats
a