phy
Viner had too much at stake not to be on their guard. The fear that
beset him was of another kind, and had a profounder source. He wanted to
do all he could for the girl, but the fact of having had to urge Anna
to confide Effie to her was peculiarly repugnant to him. His own ideas
about Sophy Viner were too mixed and indeterminate for him not to feel
the risk of such an experiment; yet he found himself in the intolerable
position of appearing to press it on the woman he desired above all
others to protect...

Till late in the night his thoughts revolved in a turmoil of indecision.
His pride was humbled by the discrepancy between what Sophy Viner had
been to him and what he had thought of her. This discrepancy, which at
the time had seemed to simplify the incident, now turned out to be
its most galling complication. The bare truth, indeed, was that he had
hardly thought of her at all, either at the time or since, and that he
was ashamed to base his judgement of her on his meagre memory of their
adventure.

The essential cheapness of the whole affair--as far as his share in it
was concerned--came home to him with humiliating distinctness. He would
have liked to be able to feel that, at the time at least, he had
staked something more on it, and had somehow, in the sequel, had a more
palpable loss to show. But the plain fact was that he hadn't spent a
penny on it; which was no doubt the reason of the prodigious score it
had since been rolling up. At any rate, beat about the case as he would,
it was clear that he owed it to Anna--and incidentally to his own peace
of mind--to find some way of securing Sophy Viner's future without
leaving her installed at Givre when he and his wife should depart for
their new post.

The night brought no aid to the solving of this problem; but it gave
him, at any rate, the clear conviction that no time was to be lost. His
first step must be to obtain from Miss Viner the chance of another and
calmer talk; and he resolved to seek it at the earliest hour.

He had gathered that Effie's lessons were preceded by an early scamper
in the park, and conjecturing that her governess might be with her he
betook himself the next morning to the terrace, whence he wandered on to
the gardens and the walks beyond.

The atmosphere was still and pale. The muffled sunlight gleamed like
gold tissue through grey gauze, and the beech alleys tapered away to a
blue haze blent of sky and forest. It was one of t