“What?” cried Strange, suddenly.

“What?” echoed Mr Norrell, startled.

Strange gave the other gentleman a sharp, questioning look. Mr Norrell gazed back at him, a little frightened.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Strange, “but do I understand you aright? Are we speaking of magical powers that are got by some means into rings, stones, amulets – things of that sort?”

Mr Norrell nodded cautiously.

“But I thought you said,” said Strange. “That is,” he made some effort to speak more gently, “I thought that you told me some weeks ago that magic rings and stones were a fable.”

Mr Norrell stared at his pupil in alarm.

“But perhaps I was mistaken?” said Strange.

Mr Norrell said nothing at all.

“I was mistaken,” said Strange again. “I beg your pardon, sir, for interrupting you. Pray, continue.”

But Mr Norrell, though he appeared greatly relieved that Strange had resolved the matter, was no longer equal to continuing and instead proposed that they have some tea; to which Mr Strange agreed very readily.⁴

That evening Strange told Arabella all that Mr Norrell had said and all that he, Strange, had said in reply.

“It was the queerest thing in the world! He was so frightened at having been found out, that he could think of nothing to say. It fell to me to think of fresh lies for him to tell me. I was obliged to conspire with him against myself.”

“But I do not understand,” said Arabella. “Why should he contradict himself in this odd way?”

“Oh! He is determined to keep some things to himself. That much is obvious – and I suppose he cannot always remember what is to be a secret and what is not. You remember that I told you there are gaps among the books in his library? Well, it seems that the very day he accepted me as his pupil, he ordered five shelves to be emptied and the books sent back to Yorkshire, because they were too dangerous for me to read.”

“Good Lord! However did you find that out?” asked Arabella, much surprized.

“Drawlight and Lascelles told me. They took great pleasure in it.”

“Ill-natured wretches!”

Mr Norrell was most disappointed to learn that Strange’s education must be interrupted for a day or two while he and Arabella sought for a house to live in. “It is his wife that is the problem,” Mr Norrell explained to Drawlight, with a sigh. “Had he been a single man, I dare say he would not have objected to coming and living here with me.”

Drawlight was most alarmed to hear that Mr Norrell had entertained such a notion and, in case it were ever revived, he took the precaution of saying, “Oh, but sir! Think of your work for the Admiralty and the War Office, so important and so confidential! The presence of another person in the house would impede it greatly.”

“Oh, but Mr Strange is going help me with that!” said Mr Norrell. “It would be very wrong of me to deprive the country of Mr Strange’s talents. Mr Strange and I went down to the Admiralty last Thursday to wait upon Lord Mulgrave. I believe that Lord Mulgrave was none too pleased at first to see that I had brought Mr Strange …”