Dorothea ran her eye down the list:  The Vicomte de Tocqueville, General Rochambeau. . . .  All the prisoners of distinction were included as well as the chief notables of the neighbourhood, which made it a long one, even without a full balance of ladies.

She went off to her room at once and penned the letters—­twenty-five in all.

Naturally, this break in the Bayfield custom set speculation going among the invited; but it is doubtful if Narcissus, any more than Dorothea, knew the reason of it.  And on Wednesday, when the guests assembled, the only one who might be suspected of sharing Endymion’s secret was (oddly enough) General Rochambeau.  The old fellow seemed ten years younger, and wore an air of sportiveness, almost of raillery, as he caught his host’s eye.  The compliments he paid Lady Bateson across the table were prodigious, and gave that good soul a hazy sensation of being wafted back to the court of Louis XV, and behaving brilliantly under the circumstances.

“Really, my dear Mr. Westcote,” she protested at length, being a chartered utterer of indiscretions which (as she delighted to prove) Endymion would not tolerate in others, but took from her and allowed, with a magisterial smile, to pass,—­“really, I trust you have not taken off the General’s parole, or to-morrow I shall have to lock my gates for fear of a chaise-and-pair.”

“Ah, to-morrow!” the General echoed, turning to Endymion, with a twinkle of malice in his eye.  “But when Mr. Westcote releases us, it will be en masse; and then, believe me, I shall come with an army, since I underrate neither the strength of the fortress nor the feeling of the country.”

“That reminds me,” put in a Mr. Saxby, of Yeovil, or near by, “we have heard of no escape or attempts at escape from Axcester this winter.  I congratulate you, Westcote—­if the General will not think it offensive.”

“Reassure yourself, my dear sir.”  General Rochambeau bowed.  “No,” he continued, lifting his eyes for a moment towards Dorothea, “in one way or another we are rid of our fence-breakers, and the rest must share the credit with our Commissary.”

“And yet the temptation—­,” began Lady Bateson.

“Is great, Madame, for some temperaments.  But the Vicomte, here, and I have tried to teach our poor compatriots that in resisting it they fight for France as surely as if they stormed a breach.  And, by the way, I heard a story this morning—­if the company would care to hear—­”

They begged him to tell it.

“But not if the ladies leave us to our wine.”  He turned to Dorothea.  “If Miss Westcote will rally and stay her forces, good; for, though it came to me casually in a letter, it is a tale of the sort which used to be fashionable in my youth—­ah! long before M. le Tocqueville remembers—­and for the telling it demanded an audience of ladies, which must help me, who am rusty, to recapture the style, if I can.”