"He hasn't it, my love: Vernon is deficient in the lady's tongue."
"I respect him for that."
"Outshone, you say? I do not know of any shining—save to one, who lights me, path and person!"
The identity of the one was conveyed to her in a bow and a soft pressure.
"Not only has he not the lady's tongue, which I hold to be a man's proper accomplishment," continued Sir Willoughby, "he cannot turn his advantages to account. Here has Miss Dale been with him now four days in the house. They are exactly on the same footing as when she entered it. You ask? I will tell you. It is this: it is want of warmth. Old Vernon is a scholar—and a fish. Well, perhaps he has cause to be shy of matrimony; but he is a fish."
"You are reconciled to his leaving you?"
"False alarm! The resolution to do anything unaccustomed is quite beyond old Vernon."
"But if Mr. Oxford—Whitford . . . your swans coming sailing up the lake, how beautiful they look when they are indignant! I was going to ask you, surely men witnessing a marked admiration for some one else will naturally be discouraged?"
Sir Willoughby stiffened with sudden enlightenment.
Though the word jealousy had not been spoken, the drift of her observations was clear. Smiling inwardly, he said, and the sentences were not enigmas to her: "Surely, too, young ladies . . . a little?—Too far? But an old friendship! About the same as the fitting of an old glove to a hand. Hand and glove have only to meet. Where there is natural harmony you would not have discord. Ay, but you have it if you check the harmony. My dear girl! You child!"