But let me tell you what more I think." Aldous laid his hand on hers for an instant.

In his pity and liking for her he had once or twice allowed himself this quasi-filial freedom.
"If you would," he entreated.
"Leave Marcella quite alone--for the present.

She is not herself--not normal, in any way.

Nor will she be till this dreadful thing is over.
But when it is over, and she has had time to recover a little, _then_"-- her thin voice expressed all the emphasis it could--"_then_ assert yourself! Ask her that question you have asked me--and get your answer." He understood.

Her advice to him, and the tone of it, implied that she had not always thought highly of his powers of self-defence in the past.
But there was a proud and sensitive instinct in him which both told him that he could not have done differently and forbade him to explain.
"You have come from London to-day ?" said Mrs.Boyce, changing the subject.