‘I remember.  But you don’t call that fortitude, do you?’

‘Yes,’ said Wych Hazel.  ’She was dying by inches,—­and yet her arms look, so strong!  I am sure she didn’t know whether they were crossed or uncrossed.’

’Do you think that lion there in the corner looks like Mr. Falkirk?’

’No, indeed!  Mr. Falkirk would take a good deal more notice of me, if I was balancing myself on one finger,’ said Wych Hazel.

‘What is that one finger for?’ said Primrose.

’Do you ask that, Rosy?  To show that she has nothing earthly to lean upon.  She just touches the pillar, as much as to say it is broken and of no use to her.  Perhaps her confidence is in that slumbering lion,—­Is that another representation of fortitude?’

He had hid Sir Joshua’s picture with an engraving of Delaroche’s Marie Antoinette leaving the Tribunal.

’She knew what it meant, I should think, if anybody did.  But most fortitude—­real fortitude—­be always unhappy?’ said Hazel looking perplexedly at the picture.

Rollo turned back to the Reynolds.  ’You were both wrong about this,’ said he; ’at least I think so.  Real fortitude does figuratively, go helmeted and plumed.  She endures so perfectly that she does not seem to endure.  In this representation the lion shows you the mental condition which lies hid behind that fair, stern front.  Now is Marie Antoinette like that?’ He turned the pictures again.

‘I cannot tell!’ said Wych Hazel.  ’One minute her fortitude looks just like pride,—­and then when you remember all she had to bear, it’s not strange if she called up pride to help her.  But it is not my ideal yet.’

‘I think it is pride,’ said Rollo.  ’So it looks to me.  Pride and grief facing down death and humiliation.  Marie Theresa’s daughter and Louis Capet’s queen acknowledging no degradation before her enemies—­giving them no triumph that she could help.  But that is not my ideal either.’

He brought out another print.

‘I always like that,’ said Primrose.

‘I do not know it,’ said Wych Hazel.

’Don’t you? it is very common.  It is the eve of St. Bartholomew.  This Catholic girl wants to tie a white favour round he lover’s arm, to save him from the massacre soon to begin.  She has had the misfortune to love a Huguenot.  White favours, you remember, were the mark by which the Catholics were to know each other in the confusion.’

‘And he will not let her.  Was it a misfortune, I wonder?’

‘What?’ said Primrose.

’To love somebody so much nobler than herself.  How gentle he is in his earnestness!’

‘Don’t be hard upon her,’ said Rollo.  ’Are you sure you wouldn’t do so in her place?’

‘No,—­’ she said, looking gravely up at him.

‘She knew it was death to go without that white handkerchief.’

‘But,’ said Primrose softly, ’wouldn’t you rather have him die true, than live dishonoured?’