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For the minute, however, he did manage to escape any positive blow, owing his safety in that respect rather to Eames's awkwardness than to his own efforts. Something about the police he was just able to utter, and there was, as a matter of course, an immediate call for a supply of those functionaries.
But this spirit, though it would show itself before John Eames, was not up to the entertainment of John Eames's mother and sister, together with the squire, the parson, and the parson's wife of Allington. So that the earl was over-weighted and did not shine on this occasion at his own dinner-table.
"When is Mr Eames going to be back?" Mrs Thorne said at dinner one day. On this occasion the squire was dining at Mrs Thorne's house; and there were three or four others there, among them a Mr Harold Smith, who was in Parliament, and his wife, and John Eames's especial friend, Sir Raffle Buffle.
"`Help! cried the Warden of Brakespeare College; `help! "`The puppy struggles, said the undergraduate, with an eye of pity, `the poor puppy struggles. How fortunate it is that I am wiser and kinder than he, and he sighted his weapon so as exactly to cover the upper part of Eames's bald head. "`Smith, said the philosopher with a sudden change to a sort of ghastly lucidity, `I shall go mad.
I was very glad that he was going, because I thought it was right." "You know, of course, how successful he has been? It was I who gave the cheque to Mr Crawley." "So Mrs Thorne has heard. Dr Thorne has written to tell her the whole story." "And now I've come to look for Mr Eames's reward." "His reward, Mrs Arabin?" "Yes; or rather to plead for him.
"Poor fellow!" said Mrs Dale. "They should not have let him come," said Lily. "But they don't understand. They think that I have lost a toy, and they mean to be good-natured, and to give me another." Very shortly after that Lily went away by herself, and sat alone for hours; and when she joined her mother again at tea-time, nothing further was said of John Eames's visit.
"I found the noble earl pretty well, thank you," said Johnny. It had become plainly understood by all the Roperites that Eames's position was quite altered since he had been honoured with the friendship of Lord De Guest. Mrs Lupex, next to whom he always sat at dinner, with a view to protecting her as it were from the dangerous neighbourhood of Cradell, treated him with a marked courtesy.
But the constancy of Mr Eames's present love was doubted by none who knew him. It was not that he went about with his stockings ungartered, or any of the old acknowledged signs of unrequited affection. In his manner he was rather jovial than otherwise, and seemed to live a happy, somewhat luxurious life, well contented with himself and the world around him.
One of them, however, had emotions calculated to swallow up surprise. Brakespeare College was one of the few that retained real traces of Gothic ornament, and just beneath Dr. Eames's balcony there ran out what had perhaps been a flying buttress, still shapelessly shaped into gray beasts and devils, but blinded with mosses and washed out with rains.
She was, naturally, anxious to drive John Eames to desperation; and anxious also, by some slight added artifice, to make sure of Cradell if Eames's desperation did not have a very speedy effect. She agreed with Jemima's criticism in the main, but she did not go quite so far as to think that Cradell was no good at all.
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