'What do you mean?' said she.
Charley walked on in silence, with melancholy look, very crestfallen, his thumbs stuck into his waistcoat pockets.
'Upon my word I don't know what you mean,' said Mrs. Woodward. 'I should have thought coming to Hampton might perhaps—perhaps have kept you—I don't exactly mean out of mischief.' That, however, in spite of her denial, was exactly what Mrs. Woodward did mean.
'So it does—but—' said Charley, now thoroughly ashamed of himself.
'But what?' said she.
'I am not fit to be here,' said Charley; and as he spoke his manly self-control all gave way, and big tears rolled down his cheeks.
Mrs. Woodward, in her woman's heart, resolved, that if it might in any way be possible, she would make him fit, fit not only to be there, but to hold his head up with the best in any company in which he might find himself.
She questioned him no further then. Her wish now was not to torment him further, but to comfort him. She determined that she would consult with Harry and with her uncle, and take counsel from them as to what steps might be taken to save the brand from the burning. She talked to him as a mother might have done, leaning on his arm, as she returned; leaning on him as a woman never leans on a man whom she deems unfit for her society. All this Charley's heart and instinct fully understood, and he was not ungrateful.
But yet he had but little to comfort him. He must return to town on Monday; return to Mr. Snape and the lock entries, to Mr. M'Ruen and the three Seasons—to Mrs. Davis, Norah Geraghty, and that horrid Mr. Peppermint. He never once thought of Clementina Golightly, to whom at that moment he was being married by the joint energies of Undy Scott and his cousin Alaric.
And what had Linda and Norman been doing all this time? Had they been placing mutual confidence in each other? No; they had not come to that yet. Linda still remembered the pang with which she had first heard of Gertrude's engagement, and Harry Norman had not yet been able to open his seared heart to a second love.