"No," I answered. "I propose to send a letter to Lucilla. A letter will find its way to her."
This again was unanswerable. Oscar inquired next what the purport of the letter was to be. I replied that I proposed to ask her to grant me a private interview—nothing more.
"Suppose Lucilla refuses?" said Mr. Finch.
"She will not refuse," I rejoined. "There was a little misunderstanding between us—I admit—at the time when I went abroad. I mean to refer frankly to that misunderstanding as my reason for writing. I shall put your daughter on her honor to give me an opportunity of setting things right between us. If I summon Lucilla to do an act of justice, I believe she will not refuse me."
(This, let me add in parenthesis, was the plan of action which I had formed on the way to Sydenham. I had only waited to mention it, until I heard what the two men proposed to do first.)
Oscar, standing hat in hand, glanced at Mr. Finch (also hat in hand) keeping obstinately near the door. If he persisted in carrying out his purpose of going alone to his cousin's house, the rector's face and manner expressed, with the politest plainness, the intention of following him. Oscar was placed between a clergyman and a woman, both equally determined to have their own way. Under those circumstances, there was no alternative—unless he wished to produce a public scandal—but to yield, or appear to yield, to one or the other of us. He selected me.
"If you succeed in seeing her," he asked, "what do you mean to do?"
"I mean either to bring her back with me here to her father and to you, or to make an appointment with her to see you both where she is now living," I replied.
Oscar—after another look at the immovable rector—rang the bell, and ordered writing materials.
"One more question," he said. "Assuming that Lucilla receives you at the house, do you intend to see——?" He stopped; his eyes shrank from meeting mine. "Do you intend to see anybody else?" he resumed: still evading the plain utterance of his brother's name.