‘The very gracefullest of chimney-pots-is he not?’ says the Countess to Harry, whose immense guffaw fails not to apprise Laxley that something has been said of him, for in his dim state of consciousness absence of the power of retort is the prominent feature, and when he has the suspicion of malicious tongues at their work, all he can do is silently to resent it.  Probably this explains his conduct to Evan.  Some youths have an acute memory for things that have shut their mouths.

The Countess observed to Harry that his dear friend Mr. Laxley appeared, by the cast of his face, to be biting a sour apple.

‘Grapes, you mean?’ laughed Harry.  ’Never mind! she’ll bite at him when he comes in for the title.’

‘Anything crude will do,’ rejoined the Countess.  ’Why are you not courting Mrs. Evremonde, naughty Don?’

‘Oh! she’s occupied—­castle’s in possession.  Besides—!’ and Harry tried hard to look sly.

‘Come and tell me about her,’ said the Countess.

Rose, Laxley, and Evan were standing close together.

‘You really are going alone, Rose?’ said Laxley.

‘Didn’t I say so?—­unless you wish to join us?’ She turned upon Evan.

‘I am at your disposal,’ said Evan.

Rose nodded briefly.

‘I think I’ll smoke the trees,’ said Laxley, perceptibly huffing.

‘You won’t come, Ferdinand?’

‘I only offered to fill up the gap.  One does as well as another.’

Rose flicked her whip, and then declared she would not ride at all, and, gathering up her skirts, hurried back to the house.

As Laxley turned away, Evan stood before him.

The unhappy fellow was precipitated by the devil of his false position.

‘I think one of us two must quit the field; if I go I will wait for you,’ he said.

‘Oh; I understand,’ said Laxley.  ’But if it ’s what I suppose you to mean, I must decline.’

‘I beg to know your grounds.’

‘You have tied my hands.’

‘You would escape under cover of superior station?’

‘Escape!  You have only to unsay—­tell me you have a right to demand it.’

The battle of the sophist victorious within him was done in a flash, as Evan measured his qualities beside this young man’s, and without a sense of lying, said:  ‘I have.’

He spoke firmly.  He looked the thing he called himself now.  The Countess, too, was a dazzling shield to her brother.  The beautiful Mrs. Strike was a completer vindicator of him; though he had queer associates, and talked oddly of his family that night in Fallow field.

‘Very well, sir:  I admit you manage to annoy me,’ said Laxley.  ’I can give you a lesson as well as another, if you want it.’

Presently the two youths were seen bowing in the stiff curt style of those cavaliers who defer a passage of temper for an appointed settlement.  Harry rushed off to them with a shout, and they separated; Laxley speaking a word to Drummond, Evan—­most judiciously, the Countess thought—­joining his fair sister Caroline, whom the Duke held in converse.