“I’m afraid I had a row with your aunt, Susy,” he began lightly, in his old familiar way; “but I had to tell her I didn’t think her conduct to Mrs. Peyton was exactly the square thing towards one who had been as devoted to you as she has been.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t go over all that again,” said Susy impatiently.  “I’ve had enough of it.”

Clarence flashed, but recovered himself.

“Then you overheard what I said, and know what I think,” he said calmly.

“I knew it before,” said the young girl, with a slight supercilious toss of the head, and yet a certain abstraction of manner as she went to the window and closed it.  “Anybody could see it!  I know you always wanted me to stay here with Mrs. Peyton, and be coddled and monitored and catechised and shut up away from any one, until you had been coddled and monitored and catechised by somebody else sufficiently to suit her ideas of your being a fit husband for me.  I told aunty it was no use our coming here to—­to”—­

“To do what?” asked Clarence.

“To put some spirit into you,” said the young girl, turning upon him sharply; “to keep you from being tied to that woman’s apron-strings.  To keep her from making a slave of you as she would of me.  But it is of no use.  Mary Rogers was right when she said you had no wish to please anybody but Mrs. Peyton, and no eyes for anybody but her.  And if it hadn’t been too ridiculous, considering her age and yours, she’d say you were dead in love with her.”

For an instant Clarence felt the blood rush to his face and then sink away, leaving him pale and cold.  The room, which had seemed to whirl around him, and then fade away, returned with appalling distinctness,—­the distinctness of memory,—­and a vision of the first day that he had seen Mrs. Peyton sitting there, as he seemed to see her now.  For the first time there flashed upon him the conviction that the young girl had spoken the truth, and had brusquely brushed the veil from his foolish eyes.  He was in love with Mrs. Peyton!  That was what his doubts and hesitation regarding Susy meant.  That alone was the source, secret, and limit of his vague ambition.

But with the conviction came a singular calm.  In the last few moments he seemed to have grown older, to have loosed the bonds of old companionship with Susy, and the later impression she had given him of her mature knowledge, and moved on far beyond her years and experience.  And it was with an authority that was half paternal, and in a voice he himself scarcely recognized, that he said:—­

“If I did not know you were prejudiced by a foolish and indiscreet woman, I should believe that you were trying to insult me as you have your adopted mother, and would save you the pain of doing both in her house by leaving it now and forever.  But because I believe you are controlled against your best instinct by that woman, I shall remain here with you to frustrate her as best I can, or until I am able to lay everything before Mrs. Peyton except the foolish speech you have just made.”