Had her lips been full, and her colour high, and had her eyes rolled, had she put forth against him any of that ordinary artillery with which youthful feminine batteries are charged, he would have been ready to rush to combat.  But this girl, about whom his son had gone mad, sat there as passively as though she were conscious of the possession of no artillery.  There was not a single gun fired from beneath her eyelids.  He knew not why, but he respected his son now more than he had respected him for the last two months;—­more, perhaps, than he had ever respected him before.  He was an eager as ever against the marriage;—­but in thinking of his son in what he said and did after these few moments of the interview, he ceased to think of him with contempt.  The creature before him was a woman who grew in his opinion till he began to feel that she was in truth fit to be the wife of his son—­if only she were not a pauper, and the daughter of a mad curate, and alas! too probably, of a thief.  Though his feeling towards the girl had changed, his duty to himself, his family, and his son, was the same as ever, and therefore he began his task.

‘Perhaps you had not expected to see me?’ he said.

‘No, indeed, sir.’

’Nor had I intended when I came over her to call on my old friend, Lady Lufton, to come up to this house.  But as I knew that you were here, Miss Crawley, I thought that upon the whole it would be better that I should see you.’  Then he paused as though he expected that Grace would say something; but Grace had nothing to say.  ’Of course you must understand, Miss Crawley, that I should not venture to speak to you on this subject unless I myself were very closely interested in it.’  He had not yet said what was the subject, and it was not probable that Grace should give him any assistance by affecting to understand this without direct explanation from him.  She sat quite motionless, and did not even aid him by showing by her altered colour that she understood his purpose.  ’My son has told me,’ said he, ’that he has professed an attachment for you, Miss Crawley.’

Then there was another pause, and Grace felt that she was compelled to say something.  ‘Major Grantly has been very good to me,’ she said, and then she hated herself for having uttered words which were so tame and unwomanly in their spirit.  Of course her lover’s father would despise her for having so spoken.  After all it did not much signify.  If he would only despise her and go away, it would perhaps be for the best.

‘I do not know about being good,’ said the archdeacon.  ’I think he is good.  I think he means to be good.’

‘I am sure he is good,’ said Grace warmly.

‘You know he has a daughter, Miss Crawley?’

‘Oh, yes; I know Edith well.’

’Of course his first duty is to her.  Is it not? and he owes much to his family.  Do you not feel that?’

‘Of course I feel it, sir.’  The poor girl had always heard Dr Grantly spoken of as the archdeacon, but she did not in the least know what she ought to call him.