,
what a shock it would give to his now-established respectability and the
confidence all men had in him, to make such a connection known. Turning
over everything in his thoughts, it even occurred to Sir Tom that it
would be better for him to confess an early secret marriage, and thus
save his own reputation and give to Bice a lawful standing ground. The
poor young mother was dead long ago; there could be no harm in such an
invention. Lucy could not be wounded by anything which happened so long
before he ever saw her. And Bice would be saved from all stigma; if only
it was Bice! if only he could be sure!

But Sir Tom, whose countenance had not the habit of expressing anything
but a large and humorous content, the careless philosophy of a happy
temper and easy mind, was changed beyond description by the surging up
of such thoughts. He became jealous and suspicious, watching Bice with a
constant impulse to interfere, and even--while disregarding all the
safeguards of his own domestic happiness for this reason--in his heart
condemned the girl because she was not like Lucy, and followed her
movements with a criticism which was as severe as that of the harshest
moralist.

Nobody in that lighthearted house could understand what had come over
the good Sir Tom, not even the Contessa, who after a manner knew the
reason, yet never imagined that the idea, which gave her a sort of
malicious pleasure, would have led to such a result. Sir Tom had always
been the most genial of hosts, but in his present state of mind even in
this respect he was not himself. He kept his eye on Bice with a
sternness of regard quite out of keeping with his character. If she
should flirt unduly, if she began to show any of those arts which made
the Contessa so fascinating, he felt, with a mingling of self-ridicule
which tickled him in spite of his seriousness, that nothing could keep
him from interposing. He had been charmed in spite of himself, even
while he saw through and laughed at the Contessa's cunning ways; but to
see them in a girl who might, for all he knew, have his own blood in her
veins was a very different matter. He felt it was in him to interpose
roughly, imperiously--and if he did so, would Bice care? She would turn
upon him with smiling defiance, or perhaps ask what right had he to
meddle in her affairs. Thus Sir Tom was so preoccupied that the change
in Lucy, the effort she made to go through her necessary duties, the
blotting out of a