“Am I fit? You know me.”
This time she laughed out.
“I don’t indeed. You must go to your old people for a character. Very possibly they might give you one.”
“And if—if that question were answered,” he went on hesitatingly, “there are others—”
She cried impatiently—“I don’t believe you ever would be without them.” But by this time Mrs Ravenhill, thinking that Lady Fanny had had enough of her silent neighbour, struck in with an observation.
Wareham and Millie were in full tide of talk. Released from the usual daily remarks of travel, they had touched on many subjects, and reached books. He found she had read a good deal, and with delicate observation. Miss Dalrymple’s taste was of stronger calibre, and she admired what Millie shrank from; but he recognised that this was not so much from the timidity he expected, as from finding what was bad, ugly, and unsympathetic. Millie steered carefully away from Wareham’s own books; he caught himself, however, reflecting gratefully that he had never written anything he should be ashamed for her to read.
Lady Fanny played in the evening, wishing, as she said, to promote conversation. Perhaps it was also to afford a cover for Mr Elliot’s silence; certain it is that he subsided into a chair which commanded a view of the piano, and uttered no sound. Mrs Ravenhill asked Wareham where he was going when he left London, more for the sake of saying something than from interest. He named Wales, as a place where he had never been and which seemed to offer advantages, among them that of being easily got out of.
“Failure can be remedied in an hour,” he said, with a laugh at himself. “I dare say I shall drift back to London before I have long been out of it.”
Mrs Ravenhill did not even say, “Come and see us.” She was indifferent, little dreaming how hopefully Millie hung on the suggestion.
When Wareham left, Mr Elliot, by a superhuman effort, managed also to take his leave. He had said no more to Fanny, but his eyes must have expressed entreaty, for she remarked, on shaking hands, that if chance brought him in that direction again, she would be there a few days longer.