ckon was taken up so much with Ellen. On the
ship he could put many things before Mr. Breckon which must here perish
in his breast, or suffer the blight of this Mr. Trannel's raillery. The
student sat near the Kentons at table, and he was no more reverent of
the judge's modest convictions than of Boyne's fantastic preoccupations.
The worst of him was that you could not help liking him: he had a
fascination which the boy felt while he dreaded him, and now and then
he did something so pleasant that when he said something unpleasant you
could hardly believe it.

At the end of the concert, when he rose and stood with all the rest,
while the royal party left their box, and the orchestra played the Dutch
national hymn, he said, in a loud whisper, to Boyne: "Now's your time,
my boy! Hurry out and hand her into her carriage!"

Boyne fairly reeled at the words which translated a passage of the wild
drama playing itself in his brain, and found little support in
bidding his tormentor, "Shut up!" The retort, rude as it was, seemed
insufficient, but Boyne tried in vain to think of something else.
He tried to punish him by separating Lottie from him, but failed as
signally in that. She went off with him, and sat in a windstuhl facing
his the rest of the afternoon, with every effect of carrying on.

Boyne was helpless, with his mother against it, when he appealed to her
to let him go and tell Lottie that she wanted her. Mrs. Kenton said that
she saw no harm in it, that Ellen was sitting in like manner with Mr.
Breckon.

"Mr. Breckon is very different, and Ellen knows how to behave,"
he urged, but his mother remained unmoved, or was too absent about
something to take any interest in the matter. In fact, she was again
unhappy about Ellen, though she put on such an air of being easy about
her. Clearly, so far as her maternal surmise could fathom the case, Mr.
Breckon was more and more interested in Ellen, and it was evident that
the child was interested in him. The situation was everything that was
acceptable to Mrs. Kenton, but she shuddered at the cloud which hung
over it, and which might any moment involve it. Again and again she had
made sure that Lottie had given Ellen no hint of Richard's ill-advised
vengeance upon Bittridge; but it was not a thing that could be kept
always, and the question was whether it could be kept till Ellen had
accepted Mr. Breckon and married him. This was beyond the question of
his asking her to do so,