struggle determined and legitimate.  I am capable of making it.  But though I’ll avow that another man’s vision transcends mine, I’ll dispute with him the power of loving!  I love you with a passion as deep, strong, and abiding as if I, too, walked in that rarer air.  I am of the earth and rooted in the earth, but I love you utterly.  If you want this thing, I will give it to you.  It was unmanly of me to say but now, ’You may do this, you may do that, and I will not lift a finger to prevent you.’  I will not leave it to you, Jacqueline.  I will awaken Joab and send him with a note to your uncles.”

He moved toward the door, but before he could reach it his wife was before him, her weight thrown against him, her raised hands thrusting him back to the hearth.  She shook her head, and her long hair shadowed her; she strove for utterance, but could find only a strangled “No—­no”; then, still clinging to him, she slipped to her knees and so to her face, and lay there in a swoon in the red zone of the firelight.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE BROTHERS

At Fontenoy the deluging rain and pitchy blackness of the night sufficiently warranted Colonel Dick’s assertion that it was an evening for a sensible man to stay where he was, and that a bowl of punch and wedding-talk and Unity at the harpsichord were to be preferred to a progress to Greenwood through such a downpour and a foot of mud.  Ludwell!—­Ludwell wouldn’t be there anyway.  He was a man of sense and would be sleeping at Red Fields, if indeed he had ever left Malplaquet.  Fairfax Cary was persuaded, and after a very happy evening in the drawing-room, went to bed and to sleep in the blue room.

Dressing, next morning, he gazed around him.  The room was familiar to him, and he had a liking for it, from the mandarin on the screen to General Washington on the wall.  The storm had passed away early in the night, and it was now a lovely morning, clear-washed, fresh, and fragrant.  He looked out of the window toward the blue hills, and down into the garden where autumn flowers were in bloom, and as he dressed he hummed an air that Unity had sung.

     “Give me pleasure, give me pain,
     Give me wine of life again! 
     Death is night without a morn,
     Give the rose and give the thorn.”

Downstairs he found Miss Dandridge and Major Edward upon the wide porch.  The wind had torn away a great bough from one of the poplars, and Colonel Dick and Deb upon the drive below were superintending its removal.  Birds were singing, delicate airs astir.  “It’s going to be the divinest day!” said Unity, and led the way to the dining-room.

Breakfast went happily on with talk of politics, county affairs, and now and then from Colonel Dick a sly allusion to the approaching marriage.  The meal was nearly over when old Cato, coming in from the hail, said something in a low voice to his master.  Colonel Churchill pushed back his chair.  “Excuse me a moment, Unity, my dear.  There’s a man wants to see me.”