‘Ah! my dear good Redworth,’ Sir Lukin sighed from his elevation of outspoken penitence:  ’you will see as I do some day.  It is the devil, think as you like of it.  When you have pulled down all the Institutions of the Country, what do you expect but ruins?  That Radicalism of yours has its day.  You have to go through a wrestle like mine to understand it.  You say, the day is fine, let’s have our game.  Old England pays for it!  Then you’ll find how you love the old land of your birth—­the noblest ever called a nation!—­with your Corn Law Repeals!—­eh, Dacier?  —­You ’ll own it was the devil tempted you.  I hear you apologizing.  Pray God, it mayn’t be too late!’

He looked up at the windows.  ‘She may be sinking!’

‘Have no fears,’ Redworth said; ‘Mrs. Warwick would send for you.’

’She would.  Diana Warwick would be sure to send.  Next to my wife, Diana Warwick’s . . . she’d send, never fear.  I dread that room.  I’d rather go through a regiment of sabres—­though it ’s over now.  And Diana Warwick stood it.  The worst is over, you told me.  By heaven! women are wonderful creatures.  But she hasn’t a peer for courage.  I could trust her—­most extraordinary thing; that marriage of hers!—­not a soul has ever been able to explain it:—­trust her to the death.’

Redworth left them, and Sir Lukin ejaculated on the merits of Diana Warwick to Dacier.  He laughed scornfully:  ’And that’s the woman the world attacks for want of virtue!  Why, a fellow hasn’t a chance with her, not a chance.  She comes out in blazing armour if you unmask a battery.  I don’t know how it might be if she were in love with a fellow.  I doubt her thinking men worth the trouble.  I never met the man.  But if she were to take fire, Troy ’d be nothing to it.  I wonder whether we might go in:  I dread the house.’

Dacier spoke of departing.

‘No, no, wait,’ Sir Lukin begged him.  ’I was talking about women.  They are the devil—­or he makes most use of them:  and you must learn to see the cloven foot under their petticoats, if you’re to escape them.  There’s no protection in being in love with your wife; I married for love; I am, I always have been, in love with her; and I went to the deuce.  The music struck up and away I waltzed.  A woman like Diana Warwick might keep a fellow straight, because she,’s all round you; she’s man and woman in brains; and legged like a deer, and breasted like a swan, and a regular sheaf of arrows—­in her eyes.  Dark women—­ah!  But she has a contempt for us, you know.  That’s the secret of her.—­ Redworth ’s at the door.  Bad?  Is it bad?  I never was particularly fond of that house—­hated it.  I love it now for Emmy’s sake.  I couldn’t live in another—­though I should be haunted.  Rather her ghost than nothing—­ though I’m an infernal coward about the next world.  But if you’re right with religion you needn’t fear.  What I can’t comprehend in Redworth is his Radicalism, and getting richer and richer.’