‘A tolerably good analogy for the story of men and women generally,’ said Weyburn.

’Ah, well, you’ve a right to talk; you don’t run miauling about women.  It ’s easy to be squashy on that subject.  As for the Jews, I don’t go by their history, but now they ’re down I don’t side with the Philistines, or Christians.  They ’re good citizens, and they ’ve got Samson in the brain, too.  That comes of persecution, a hard education.  They beat the world by counting in the head.  That ’s because they ’ve learnt the value of fractions.  Napoleon knew it in war, when he looked to the boots and great-coats of his men; those were his fractions.  Lord Ormont thinks he had too hard-and-fast a system for the battle-field.’

‘A greater strategist than tactician, my lady?  It may be,’ said Weyburn, smiling at her skips.

’Massing his cannon to make a big hole for his cavalry, my brother says; and weeding his infantry for the Imperial Guard he postponed the moment to use.’

‘At Moskowa?’

’Waterloo.  I believe Lord Ormont would—­there! his country ’s lost him, and chose it.  They ’ll have their day for repentance yet.  What a rapture to have a thousand horsemen following you!  I suppose there never was a man worthy of the name who roared to be a woman.  I know I could have shrieked half my life through to have been born male.  It ’s no matter now.  When we come to this hateful old age, we meet:  no, we ’re no sex then—­we ’re dry sticks.  I ’ll tell you:  my Olmer doctor—­that ’s an impudent fellow who rode by staring into my carriage.  The window’s down.  He could see without pushing his hat in.’

Weyburn looked out after a man cantering on.

‘A Mr. Morsfield,’ he said.  ’I thought it was he when I saw him go by.  I’ve met him at the fencing-rooms.  He ’s one of the violent fencers, good for making his point, if one funks an attack.’

’That man Morsfield, is it?  I wonder what he’s doing on the road here.  He goes over London boasting—­hum, nothing to me.  But he ’ll find Lord Ormont’s arm can protect a poor woman, whatever she is.  He’d have had it before, only Lord Ormont shuns a scandal.  I was telling you, my Olmer doctor forbade horse-riding, and my husband raised a noise like one of my turkeycocks on the wing; so I ’ve given up the saddle, to quiet him.  I guessed.  I went yesterday morning to my London physician.  He sounded me, pushed out his mouth and pulled down his nose, recommended avoidance of excitement.  “Is it heart?” I said.  He said it was heart.  That was the best thing an old woman could hear.  He said, when he saw I wasn’t afraid, it was likely to be quick; no doctors, no nurses and daily bulletins for inquirers, but just the whites of the eyes, the laying-out, the undertaker, and the family-vault.  That’s one reason why I want to see Steignton before the blow that may fall any day, whether my brother Rowsley’s there or no.  But that Olmer doctor of mine, Causitt, Peter Causitt, shall pay me for being a liar or else an ignoramus when I told him he was to tell me bluntly the nature of my disease.’