“Do you know him?”

“But his name!”

“Do me the favour to look at me.  Captain Gambier.”

“It is!”

Captain Gambier’s face was resolutely kept in profile to her.

“I hear a rumour,” said Lady Gosstre to Arabella, “that you think of bidding for the Besworth estate.  Are you tired of Brookfield?”

“Not tired; but Brookfield is modern, and I confess that Besworth has won my heart.”

“I shall congratulate myself on having you nearer neighbours.  Have you many, or any rivals?”

“There is some talk of the Tinleys wishing to purchase it.  I cannot see why.”

“What people are they?” asked Lady Charlotte.  “Do they hunt?”

“Oh, dear, no!  They are to society what Dissenters are to religion.  I can’t describe them otherwise.”

“They pass before me in that description,” said Lady Gosstre.

“Besworth’s an excellent centre for hunting,” Lady Charlotte remarked to Wilfrid.  “I’ve always had an affection for that place.  The house is on gravel; the river has trout; there’s a splendid sweep of grass for the horses to exercise.  I think there must be sixteen spare beds.  At all events, I know that number can be made up; so that if you’re too poor to live much in London, you can always have your set about you.”

The eyes of the fair economist sparkled as she dwelt on these particular advantages of Besworth.

Richford boasted a show of flowers that might tempt its guests to parade the grounds on balmy evenings.  Wilfrid kept by the side of Lady Charlotte.  She did not win his taste a bit.  Had she been younger, less decided in tone, and without a title, it is very possible that she would have offended his native, secret, and dominating fastidiousness as much as did Emilia.  Then, what made him subject at all to her influence, as he felt himself beginning to be?  She supplied a deficiency in the youth.  He was growing and uncertain:  she was set and decisive.  In his soul he adored the extreme refinement of woman; even up to the thin edge of inanity (which neighbours what the philosopher could tell him if he would, and would, if it were permitted to him).  Nothing was too white, too saintly, or too misty, for his conception of abstract woman.  But the practical wants of our nature guide us best.  Conversation with Lady Charlotte seemed to strengthen and ripen him.  He blushed with pleasure when she said:  “I remember reading your name in the account of that last cavalry charge on the Dewan.  You slew a chief, I think.  That was creditable, for they are swordmen.  Cavalry in Europe can’t win much honour—­not individual honour, I mean.  I suppose being part of a victorious machine is exhilarating.  I confess I should not think much of wearing that sort of feather.  It’s right to do one’s duty, comforting to trample down opposition, and agreeable to shed blood, but when you have matched yourself man to man, and beaten—­why, then, I dub you knight.”