m, a duel conducted with proper
propriety on either side. It lasted about half an hour. Philippa's
manner said plainly to Miss Milner: "My child, you have got hold of
something that isn't good for you, something that doesn't belong to
you, something that you are not old enough or clever enough to keep,
something that you will not be permitted to keep. You had better
drop it." Miss Milner's manner said still more plainly to Philippa:
"I don't know what you're driving at, but you don't suppose I take
you seriously, do you?" It said nothing at all about Laurence
Furnival. That was where Miss Milner's manner scored.

In short, it was a very pretty duel, and it ended in Miss Milner's
refusing to accompany Furnival to the Amberley woods and in
Philippa's carrying him off bodily (Straker noted that she scored a
point there, or seemed to score). As they went Miss Milner was seen
to smile, subtly, for all her innocence. She lent herself with great
sweetness to Brocklebank's desire to show her his prize roses.

Straker was left alone with Fanny.

Fanny was extremely agitated by the sight of Furnival's capture.
"Jimmy," she said, "haven't I been good to you? Haven't I been an
angel? Haven't I done every mortal thing I could for you?"

He admitted that she had.

"Well, then, now you've got to do something for me. You've got to
look after Philippa. Don't let her get at him."

"No fear."

But Fanny insisted that he had seen Philippa carrying Furnival off
under Molly Milner's innocent nose, and that her manner of
appropriating him, too, vividly recalled the evening of her arrival
two years ago, when he would remember what had happened to poor
Nora's nose.

"She took him from Nora."

"My dear Fanny, that was an act of the highest moral----"

"Don't talk to me about your highest moral anything. _I_ know what
it was."

"Besides, she didn't take him from Nora," she went on, ignoring her
previous line of argument. "He took himself. He was getting tired of
her."

"Well," said Straker, "he isn't tired of Miss Milner."

"She's taken him off _there_," said Fanny. She nodded gloomily
toward the Amberley woods.

Straker smiled. He was looking westward over the shining fields
where he had once walked with Philippa. Already they were returning.
Furnival had not allowed himself to be taken very far. As they
approached Straker saw that Philippa was pouring herself out at
Furnival and that Furnival was not absorbing any of it; he