between Miss Hernshaw and Mrs. Rock with regard to the matter in hand, or
lately in hand, it dropped, after a few uninterested inquiries from Mrs.
Rock, who was satisfied, or seemed so, to know that Miss Hernshaw had got
at the worst. She led the talk to other things, like the comparative
comforts and discomforts of the line to Genoa and the line to Liverpool;
and Hewson met her upon these polite topics with an apparent fulness of
interest that would have deceived a much more attentive listener.

All the time he was arguing with Miss Hernshaw in his nether
consciousness, pleading with her to keep her away from the fact that he
had himself bought St. Johnswort, until he could frame some fitting
form in which to tell her that he had bought it. With his outward eyes,
he saw her drooping on the opposite side of the table, and in spite of
her declaration that she wanted her breakfast, making nothing of it,
after the preliminary melon, while to his inward vision she was
passionately refusing, by every charming perversity, to be tempted
away from the subject.

As the Cunard boats always get in on Saturday, this morrow of their
arrival was naturally Sunday; and after a while Hewson fancied symptoms
of going to church in Mrs. Rock. She could not have become more vague
than she ordinarily was, but her wanderings were of a kind of devotional
character. She spoke of the American church in Rome, and asked Hewson if
he knew the rector. Then, when he said he was afraid he was keeping her
from going to church, she said she did not know whether Rosalie intended
going. At the same time she rose from the table, and Hewson found that he
should not be allowed to sit down again, unless by violence. He had to go
away, and he went, as little at ease in his mind as he very well could
be.