on the table, and
resting her face on her hands, as she had already done more than once
when he had been there; so that the attitude, which became her well, was
now customary in his eyes.

"You will hardly be guided by my opinion in such a matter."

"By whose, then, will I be guided? Nay, Harry, since you put me to a
promise, I will make the promise. I will be guided by your opinion. If
you bid me see him, I will do it--though, I own, it would be distressing
to me."

"Why should you see him, if you do not wish it?"

"I know no reason. In truth there is no reason. What he says about Lord
Ongar is simply some part of his scheme. You see what his scheme is,
Harry?"

"What is his scheme?"

"Simply this--that I should be frightened into becoming his wife. My
darling bosom friend Sophie, who, as I take it, has not quite managed to
come to satisfactory terms with her brother--and I have no doubt her
price for assistance has been high--has informed me more than once that
her brother desires to do me so much honor. The count, perhaps, thinks
that he can manage such a bagatelle without any aid from his sister; and
my dearest Sophie seems to feel that she can do better with me herself
in my widowed state, than if I were to take another husband. They are so
kind and so affectionate; are they not?"

At this moment tea was brought in, and Clavering sat for a time silent
with his cup in his hand. She, the meanwhile, had resumed the old
position with her face upon her hands, which she had abandoned when the
servant entered the room, and was now sitting looking at him as he
sipped his tea with his eyes averted from her. "I cannot understand," at
last he said, "why you should persist in your intimacy with such a
woman."

"You have not thought about it, Harry, or you would understand it. It
is, I think, very easily understood."

"You know her to be treacherous, false, vulgar, covetous, unprincipled.
You cannot like her. You say she is a dragon."

"A dragon to you, I said."

"You cannot pretend that she is a lady, and yet you put up with her
society."

"Exactly. And now tell me what you would have me do."

"I would have you part from her."

"But how? It is so easy to say, part. Am I to bar my door against her
when she has given me no offence? Am I to forget that she did me great
service, when I sorely needed such services? Can I tell her to her face
that she is all these things that you say of her, and that therefore I