“Are we laying hold of a third poor girl?” said Mrs. Mountstuart.  “Ah!  I remember.  And I remember we used to call it playing fast and loose in those days, not fatality.  It is very strange.  It may be that you were unblushingly courted in those days, and excusable; and we all supposed . . . but away you went for your tour.”

“My mother’s medical receipt for me.  Partially it succeeded.  She was for grand marriages:  not I. I could make, I could not be, a sacrifice.  And then I went in due time to Dr. Cupid on my own account.  She has the kind of attraction. . .  But one changes!  On revient toujours.  First we begin with a liking; then we give ourselves up to the passion of beauty:  then comes the serious question of suitableness of the mate to match us; and perhaps we discover that we were wiser in early youth than somewhat later.  However, she has beauty.  Now, Mrs Mountstuart, you do admire her.  Chase the idea of the ‘dainty rogue’ out of your view of her:  you admire her:  she is captivating; she has a particular charm of her own, nay, she has real beauty.”

Mrs. Mountstuart fronted him to say:  “Upon my word, my dear Sir Willoughby, I think she has it to such a degree that I don’t know the man who could hold out against her if she took the field.  She is one of the women who are dead shots with men.  Whether it’s in their tongues or their eyes, or it’s an effusion and an atmosphere—­whatever it is, it’s a spell, another fatality for you!”

“Animal; not spiritual!”

“Oh, she hasn’t the head of Letty Dale.”

Sir Willoughby allowed Mrs. Mountstuart to pause and follow her thoughts.

“Dear me!” she exclaimed.  “I noticed a change in Letty Dale last night; and to-day.  She looked fresher and younger; extremely well:  which is not what I can say for you, my friend.  Fatalizing is not good for the complexion.”

“Don’t take away my health, pray,” cried Willoughby, with a snapping laugh.

“Be careful,” said Mrs. Mountstuart.  “You have got a sentimental tone.  You talk of ‘feelings crushed of old’.  It is to a woman, not to a man that you speak, but that sort of talk is a way of making the ground slippery.  I listen in vain for a natural tongue; and when I don’t hear it, I suspect plotting in men.  You show your under-teeth too at times when you draw in a breath, like a condemned high-caste Hindoo my husband took me to see in a jail in Calcutta, to give me some excitement when I was pining for England.  The creature did it regularly as he breathed; you did it last night, and you have been doing it to-day, as if the air cut you to the quick.  You have been spoilt.  You have been too much anointed.  What I’ve just mentioned is a sign with me of a settled something on the brain of a man.”

“The brain?” said Sir Willoughby, frowning.

“Yes, you laugh sourly, to look at,” said she.  “Mountstuart told me that the muscles of the mouth betray men sooner than the eyes, when they have cause to be uneasy in their minds.”