"I'm very bad at an argument," persisted the old lady; "but it _is_ rash, and _very_ rash. You can't conceive," and here she lowered her voice, "the state of exasperation in which he is."
"He," of course, could only mean Sir Booth Fanshawe; and Cleve answered,--
"I assure you, I can't blame him. I don't wonder. I think a great deal has been very wantonly done to aggravate his misfortunes; but surely, he can't fancy that I could sympathise with any such proceedings, or feel anything but horror and disgust. Surely, _you_ would not allow him to connect me, however slightly? I _know_ you would not."
"My dear Mr. Verney, you don't know Booth Fanshawe, or rather, you do, I believe, know him a great deal too well, to fancy that I could venture to speak to him upon the subject. _That_, I assure you, is quite out of the question; and I may as well tell you frankly, if he were at home, I mean _here_, I should have begged you at once, inhospitable as it might seem, to leave this place, and trust to time and to letters, but _here_ I would not have allowed you to linger."
"He's away from home, then!" exclaimed Cleve.
"Yes; but he'll be back to-night at ten o'clock."
"At ten o'clock," repeated Cleve, and the young man thought what a treasure of minutes there was in the interval. "And Miss Fanshawe--Margaret--she's quite well?"
"Yes, she's quite well," answered kind Miss Sheckleton, looking in his earnest eyes, and thinking that he looked a little thin and pale. "She's quite well, and, I hope, _you_ have been."
"Oh, yes," answered the young man, "as well as a man with a good many troubles can be. In fact, I may tell _you_, I've been very unhappy. I was thinking of writing to Sir Booth."
"_Don't_," implored Miss Sheckleton, looking quite wildly into his eyes, and with her hand upon his arm, as if to arrest the writing of that letter, "you have no notion how he feels. I assure you, an allusion--the slightest thing is quite enough to set him in a blaze. The other day, for instance, I did not know what it was, till I took up the paper he had been reading, and I found there something about the Verney peerage, and proof that Arthur Verney was dead, and your uncle to get it; and really I can't wonder--some people seem so unaccountably fortunate, and others, everything goes wrong with--even _I_ felt vexed when I read it, though, of course, any good fortune happening to _you_, I should be very glad of. But he did not see any of us till next day--even Macklin."