She went up-stairs.  In ten minutes she descended, and found him pacing up and down the hall.  ‘Madame de Rouaillout is much the same,’ she said.  He nodded, looked up the stairs, and about for his hat and gloves, drew on the gloves, fixed the buttons, blinked at his watch, and settled his hat as he was accustomed to wear it, all very methodically, and talking rapidly, but except for certain precise directions, which were not needed by so careful a housekeeper and nurse as Rosamund was known to be, she could not catch a word of meaning.  He had some appointment, it seemed; perhaps he was off for a doctor—­a fresh instance of his masculine incapacity to understand patient endurance.  After opening the housedoor, and returning to the foot of the stairs, listening and sighing, he disappeared.

It struck her that he was trying to be two men at once.

The litter of newspaper sheets in the morning-room brought his exclamation to her mind:  ‘They’re at me!’ Her eyes ran down the columns, and were seized by the print of his name in large type.  A leading article was devoted to Commander’s Beauchamp’s recent speech delivered in the great manufacturing town of Gunningham, at a meeting under the presidency of the mayor, and his replies to particular questions addressed to him; one being, what right did he conceive himself to have to wear the Sovereign’s uniform in professing Republican opinions?  Rosamund winced for her darling during her first perusal of the article.  It was of the sarcastically caressing kind, masterly in ease of style, as the flourish of the executioner well may be with poor Bare-back hung up to a leisurely administration of the scourge.  An allusion to ’Jack on shore’ almost persuaded her that his uncle Everard had inspired the writer of the article.  Beauchamp’s reply to the question of his loyalty was not quoted:  he was, however, complimented on his frankness.  At the same time he was assured that his error lay in a too great proneness to make distinctions, and that there was no distinction between sovereign and country in a loyal and contented land, which could thank him for gallant services in war, while taking him for the solitary example to be cited at the present period of the evils of a comparatively long peace.

’Doubtless the tedium of such a state to a man of the temperament of the gallant commander,’ etc., the termination of the article was indulgent.  Rosamund recurred to the final paragraph for comfort, and though she loved Beauchamp, the test of her representative feminine sentiment regarding his political career, when personal feeling on his behalf had subsided, was, that the writer of the article must have received an intimation to deal both smartly and forbearingly with the offender:  and from whom but her lord?  Her notions of the conduct of the Press were primitive.  In a summary of the article Beauchamp was treated as naughty boy, formerly brave boy, and likely by-and-by to be good boy.  Her secret heart would have spoken similarly, with more emphasis on the flattering terms.