‘The boys don’t say the girl’s brother turned tail.’

’Only that the girl’s brother aged eight followed the lead of the little girl aged six,’ Mrs. Lawrence remarked.  ’Well, I like the schoolboys, too—­“we are sorry to say!” But they ’re good lads.  Boys who can appreciate brave deeds are capable of doing them.’

‘Speak to me about it on Monday,’ the earl said to Weyburn.

He bowed, and replied—­

’I shall have the day to-morrow.  I ‘ll walk it and call on Messrs.’ (he glanced at the paper) ’Gowen, Bench, and Parsons.  I have a German friend in London anxious to wear his legs down stumpier.’

‘The name of the school?’

‘It is called Cuper’s.’

Aminta, on hearing the name of Cuper a second time, congratulated herself on the happy invention of her pretext to keep Mrs. Pagnell from the table at midday.  Her aunt had a memory for names:  what might she not have exclaimed!  There would have been little in it, but it was as well that the ‘boy of the name of Weyburn’ at Cuper’s should be unmentioned.  By an exaggeration peculiar to a disgust in fancy, she could hear her aunt vociferating ‘Weyburn!’ and then staring at Mr. Weyburn opposite—­perhaps not satisfied with staring.

He withdrew after his usual hearty meal, during which his talk of boys and their monkey tricks, and what we can train them to, had been pleasant generally, especially to Mrs. Lawrence.  Aminta was carried back to the minute early years at High Brent.  A line or two of a smile touched her cheek.

’Yes, my dear countess, that is the face I want for Lady de Culme to-day,’ said Mrs. Lawrence.’  She likes a smiling face.  Aunty—­aunty has always been good; she has never been prim.  I was too much for her, until I reflected that she was very old, and deserved to know the truth before she left us; and so I went to her; and then she said she wished to see the Countess of Ormont, because of her being my dearest friend.  I fancy she entertains an ‘arriere’ idea of proposing her flawless niece Gracey, Marchioness of Fencaster, to present you.  She ’s quite equal to the fatigue herself.  You ’ll rejoice in her anecdotes.  People were virtuous in past days:  they counted their sinners.  In those days, too, as I have to understand, the men chivalrously bore the blame, though the women were rightly punished.  Now, alas! the initiative is with the women, and men are not asked for chivalry.  Hence it languishes.  Lady de Culme won’t hear of the Queen of Blondes; has forbidden her these many years!’

Lord Ormont, to whom the lady’s prattle was addressed, kept his visage moveless, except in slight jerks of the brows.

‘What queen?’

’You insist upon renewing my old, old pangs of jealousy, my dear lord!  The Queen of Cyprus, they called her, in the last generation; she fights our great duellist handsomely.’

‘My dear Mrs. Lawrence!’

‘He triumphs finally, we know, but she beats him every round.’