Even her writing of the pointed truths she would deliver was an unpleasant anticipation.  His ears heated.  Undoubtedly he could crush her.  Yet, supposing her to speak to his ears, she would say:  ’You married a young woman, and have been foiling and fooling her ever since, giving her half a title to the name of wife, and allowing her in consequence to be wholly disfigured before the world—­your family naturally her chief enemies, who would otherwise (Charlotte would proclaim it) have been her friends.  What! your intention was (one could hear Charlotte’s voice) to smack the world in the face, and you smacked your young wife’s instead!’

His intention had been nothing of the sort.  He had married, in a foreign city, a young woman who adored him, whose features, manners, and carriage of her person satisfied his exacting taste in the sex; and he had intended to cast gossipy England over the rail and be a traveller for the remainder of his days.  And at the first she had acquiesced, tacitly accepted it as part of the contract.  He bore with the burden of an intolerable aunt of hers for her sake.  The two fell to work to conspire.  Aminta ‘tired of travelling,’ Aminta must have a London house.  She continually expressed a hope that ’she might set her eyes on Steignton some early day.’  In fact, she as good as confessed her scheme to plot for the acknowledged position of Countess of Ormont in the English social world.  That was a distinct breach of the contract.

As to the babble of the London world about a ‘very young wife,’ he scorned it completely, but it belonged to the calculation.  ’A very handsome young wife,’ would lay commands on a sexagenarian vigilance while adding to his physical glory.  The latter he could forego among a people he despised.  It would, however, be an annoyance to stand constantly hand upon sword-hilt.  There was, besides, the conflict with his redoubtable sister.  He had no dread of it, in contemplation of the necessity; he could crush his Charlotte.  The objection was, that his Aminta should be pressing him to do it.  Examine the situation at present.  Aminta has all she needs—­every luxury.  Her title as Countess of Ormont is not denied.  Her husband justly refuses to put foot into English society.  She, choosing to go where she may be received, dissociates herself from him, and he does not complain.  She does complain.  There is a difference between the two.

He had always shunned the closer yoke with a woman because of these vexatious dissensions.  For not only are women incapable of practising, they cannot comprehend magnanimity.

Lord Ormont’s argumentative reverie to the above effect had been pursued over and over.  He knew that the country which broke his military career and ridiculed his newspaper controversy was unforgiven by him.  He did not reflect on the consequences of such an unpardoning spirit in its operation on his mind.