“I saw her,” Roxholm answered—­and it seemed to him that as he spoke he beheld again the scarlet figure fly over the hedge on its young devil of a horse—­and felt his heart leap as the horse did.

My Lord Dunstanwolde looked grave and pushed his glass back and forth on the mahogany.  Glancing at him Roxholm thought his cheek had flushed, as if he did not like the subject.  But Twemlow went on, growing hotter.

“One day in the field,” he said, “it broke from its loop—­her hair—­and fell about her like a black mantle, streaming over her horse’s back, and a sight it was—­and damn it, so was she; and every man in the field shouting with pleasure or laughter.  And she snatched her hat off with an oath and sat there as straight as a dart, but in a fury and winding her coils up, with her cheeks as scarlet as her coat and cursing like a young vagabond stable-boy between her teeth.”

Dunstanwolde moved suddenly and almost overset his glass, but Roxholm took his up and drained it with an unmoved countenance.

But he could see her sitting in her black hair, and could see, too, the splendid scarlet on her angry cheek, and her eyes flashing wickedly.

“Tis not decent,” cried Lord Twemlow, striking the table with his hand.  “If the baggage were not what she is, it would be bad enough, but there is not a woman in England built so.  ’Tis well Charles Stuart is not on the throne, or she would outdo any Castlemaine that ever ruled him.  And ’tis well that Louis is in France and that Maintenon keeps him sober.  She might retrieve her house’s fortunes and rule at Court a Duchess; but what decent man will look at her with her Billingsgate and her breeches?  A nice lady she would make for a gentleman!  Any modest snub-nosed girl would be better.  There is scarce a week passes she does not set the country by the ears with some fury or frolic.  One time ’tis clouting a Chaplain till his nose bleeds; next ’tis frightening some virtuous woman of fashion into hysteric swooning with her impudent flaming tongue.  The women hate her, and she pays them out as she only can.  Lady Maddon had fits for an hour, after an encounter with her, in their meeting by chance one day at a mercer’s in the county town.  She has the wit of a young she-devil and the temper of a tigress, and is so tall, and towers so that she frightens them out of their senses.”

My lord Marquess looked at him across the table.

“She is young,” he said, “she is beautiful.  Is there no man who loves her who can win her from her mad ways?”

“Man!” cried Twemlow, raging, “every scoundrel and bumpkin in the shire is mad after her, but she knows none who are not as bad as she—­and they tell me she laughs her wild, scornful laugh at each of them and looks at him—­standing with her hands in her breeches pockets and her legs astride, and mocks as if she were some goddess instead of a mere strapping, handsome vixen.  ‘There is not one of ye,’ she says, ’not one among ye who is man and big enough!’ Such impudence was never yet in woman born!  And the worst on’t is, she is right—­damn her!—­she’s right.”