‘And I listen to you,’ said Lady Dunstane.

’Ah! if all England, half, a quarter, the smallest piece of the land were like you, my lady, I’d be loyal to the finger-nails.  Now, is she engaged?—­when I get a word with her?’

’She is nineteen, or nearly, and she ought to have five good years of freedom, I think.’

‘And five good years of serfdom I’d serve to win her!’

A look at him under the eyelids assured Lady Dunstane that there would be small chance for Mr. Sullivan Smith; after a life of bondage, if she knew her Diana, in spite of his tongue, his tact, his lively features, and breadth of shoulders.

Up he sprang.  Diana was on Mr. Redworth’s arm.  ‘No refreshments,’ she said; and ‘this is my refreshment,’ taking the seat of Mr. Sullivan Smith, who ejaculated,

‘I must go and have that gentleman’s name.’  He wanted a foe.

’You know you are ready to coquette with the General at any moment, Tony,’ said her friend.

‘Yes, with the General!’

‘He is a noble old man.’

’Superb.  And don’t say “old man.”  With his uniform and his height and his grey head, he is like a glorious October day just before the brown leaves fall.’

Diana hummed a little of the air of Planxty Kelly, the favourite of her childhood, as Lady Dunstane well remembered, they smiled together at the scenes and times it recalled.

‘Do you still write verses, Tony?’

’I could about him.  At one part of the fight he thought he would be beaten.  He was overmatched in artillery, and it was a cavalry charge he thundered on them, riding across the field to give the word of command to the couple of regiments, riddled to threads, that gained the day.  That is life—­when we dare death to live!  I wonder at men, who are men, being anything but soldiers!  I told you, madre, my own Emmy, I forgave you for marrying, because it was a soldier.’

’Perhaps a soldier is to be the happy man.  But you have not told me a word of yourself.  What has been done with the old Crossways?’

’The house, you know, is mine.  And it’s all I have:  ten acres and the house, furnished, and let for less than two hundred a year.  Oh! how I long to evict the tenants!  They can’t have my feeling for the place where I was born.  They’re people of tolerably good connections, middling wealthy, I suppose, of the name of Warwick, and, as far as I can understand, they stick there to be near the Sussex Downs, for a nephew, who likes to ride on them.  I’ve a half engagement, barely legible, to visit them on an indefinite day, and can’t bear the idea of strangers masters in the old house.  I must be driven there for shelter, for a roof, some month.  And I could make a pilgrimage in rain or snow just to doat on the outside of it.  That’s your Tony.’

‘She’s my darling.’

’I hear myself speak!  But your voice or mine, madre, it’s one soul.  Be sure I am giving up the ghost when I cease to be one soul with you, dear and dearest!  No secrets, never a shadow of a deception, or else I shall feel I am not fit to live.  Was I a bad correspondent when you were in India?’