he did more, in requesting me to render him a service.'
'There's not a creature living that fellow wouldn't get to serve him, if he knew the trick. We should all of us be marching on London at Shrapnel's heels. The political mania is just as incurable as hydrophobia, and he's bitten. That's clear.'
'Bitten perhaps: but not mad. As you have always contended, the true case is incurable, but it is very rare: and is this one?'
'It's uncommonly like a true case, though I haven't seen him foam at the mouth, and shun water-as his mob does.'
Rosamund restrained some tears, betraying the effort to hide the moisture. 'I am no match for you, my lord. I try to plead on his behalf;—I do worse than if I were dumb. This I most earnestly say: he is the Nevil Beauchamp who fought for his country, and did not abandon her cause, though he stood there—we had it from Colonel Halkett—a skeleton: and he is the Nevil who—I am poorly paying my debt to him! —defended me from the aspersions of his cousin.'
'Boys!' Lord Romfrey ejaculated.
'It is the same dispute between them as men.'
'Have you forgotten my proposal to shield you from liars and scandalmongers?'
'Could I ever forget it?' Rosamund appeared to come shining out of a cloud. 'Princeliest and truest gentleman, I thought you then, and I know you to be, my dear lord. I fancied I had lived the scandal down. I was under the delusion that I had grown to be past backbiting: and that no man could stand before me to insult and vilify me. But, for a woman in any so-called doubtful position, it seems that the coward will not be wanting to strike her. In quitting your service, I am able to affirm that only once during the whole term of it have I consciously overstepped the line of my duties: it was for Nevil: and Captain Baskelett undertook to defend your reputation, in consequence.'
'Has the rascal been questioning your conduct?' The earl frowned.
'Oh, no! not questioning: he does not question, he accuses: he never doubted: and what he went shouting as a boy, is plain matter of fact to him now. He is devoted to you. It was for your sake that he desired me to keep my name from being mixed up in a scandal he foresaw the occurrence of in your house.'
'He permitted himself to sneer at you?'
'He has the art of sneering. On this occasion he wished to be direct and personal.'
'What sort of hints were they?'
Lord Romfrey strode away from her chair that the answer might be easy to her, for she was red, and evidently suffering from shame as well as indignation.
'The hints we call distinct.' said Rosamund.
'In words?'
'In hard words.'
'Then you won't meet Cecil?'
Such a question, and the tone of indifference in which it came, surprised and revolted her so that the unreflecting reply leapt out:
'I would rather meet a devil.'
Of how tremblingly, vehemently, and hastily she had said it, she was unaware. To her lord it was an outcry of nature, astutely touched by him to put her to proof.
He continued his long leisurely strides, nodding over his feet.
Rosamund stood up. She looked a very noble figure in her broad black- furred robe. 'I have one serious confession to make, sir.'
'What's that?' said he.
'I would avoid it, for it cannot lead to particular harm; but I have an enemy who may poison your ear in my absence. And first I resign my position. I have forfeited it.'
'Time goes forward, ma'am, and you go round. Speak to the point. Do you mean that you toss up the reins of my household?'
'I do. You trace it to Nevil immediately?'
'I do. The fellow wants to upset the country, and he begins with me.'
'You are wrong, my lord. What I have done places me at Captain Baskelett's mercy. It is too loathsome to think of: worse than the whip; worse than your displeasure. It might never be known; but the thought that it might gives me courage. You have said that to protect a woman everything is permissible. It is your creed, my lord, and because the world, I have heard you say, is unjust and implacable to women. In some cases, I think so too. In reality I followed your instructions; I mean, your example. Cheap chivalry on my part! But it pained me not a little. I beg to urge that in my defence.'
'Well, ma'am, you have tied the knot tight enough; perhaps now you'll cut it,' said the earl.
Rosamund gasped softly. 'M. le Marquis is a gentleman who, after a life of dissipation, has been reminded by bad health that he has a young and beautiful wife.'
'He dug his pit to fall into it:—he's jealous?'
She shook her head to indicate the immeasurable.
'Senile jealousy is anxious to be deceived. He could hardly be deceived so far as to imagine that Madame la Marquise would visit me, such as I am, as my guest. Knowingly or not, his very clever sister, a good woman, and a friend to husband and wife—a Frenchwoman of the purest type—gave me the title. She insisted on it, and I presumed to guess that she deemed it necessary for the sake of peace in that home.'
Lord Romfrey appeared merely inquisitive; his eyebrows were lifted in permanence; his eyes were mild.
She continued: 'They leave England in a few hours. They are not likely to return. I permitted him to address me with the title of countess.'
'Of Romfrey?' said the earl.
Rosamund bowed.
His mouth contracted. She did not expect thunder to issue from it, but she did fear to hear a sarcasm, or that she would have to endure a deadly silence: and she was gathering her own lips in imitation of his, to nerve herself for some stroke to come, when he laughed in his peculiar close- mouthed manner.
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