The close of the battle was on the visage of Rufus Abrane fifteen minutes before that Elgin marble under red paint in the ring sat on the knee of a succouring seconder, mopped, rubbed, dram-primed, puppy-peeping, inconsolably comforted, preparatory to the resumption of the great-coat he had so hopefully cast from his shoulders.  Not downcast by any means.  Like an old Roman, the man of the sheer hulk with purple eyemounds found his legs to do the manful thing, show that there was no bad blood, stand equal to all forms.  Ben Todds, if ever man in Old England, looked the picture you might label ‘Bellyful,’ it was remarked.  Kit Ines had an appearance of springy readiness to lead off again.  So they faced on the opening step of their march into English History.

Vanquisher and vanquished shook hands, engaged in a parting rally of good-humoured banter; the beaten man said his handsome word; the best man capped it with a compliment to him.  They drink of different cups to-day.  Both will drink of one cup in the day to come.  But the day went too clearly to crown the light and the tight and the right man of the two, for moralizing to wag its tail at the end.  Oldsters and youngsters agreed to that.  Science had done it:  happy the backers of Science!  Not one of them alluded to the philosophical ‘hundred years hence.’  For when England, thanks to a spirited pair of our young noblemen, has exhibited one of her characteristic performances consummately, Philosophy is bidden fly; she is a foreign bird.

CHAPTER XVII

RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOING

Kit Ines cocked an eye at Madge, in the midst of the congratulations and the paeans pumping his arms.  As he had been little mauled, he could present a face to her, expecting a wreath of smiles for the victor.

What are we to think of the contrarious young woman who, when he lay beaten, drove him off the field and was all tenderness and devotion?  She bobbed her head, hardly more than a trifle pleased, one might say.  Just like females.  They’re riddles, not worth spelling.  Then, drunk I’ll get to-night, my pretty dear! the man muttered, soured by her inopportune staidness, as an opponent’s bruisings could never have rendered him.

She smiled a lively beam in answer to the earl; ’Oh yes I ’m glad.  It’s your doing, my lord.’  Him it was that she thanked, and for the moment prized most.  The female riddle is hard to read, because it is compounded of sensations, and they rouse and appeal to the similar cockatrices in us, which either hiss back or coil upon themselves.  She admired Kit Ines for his valour:  she hated that ruinous and besotting drink.  It flung skeletons of a married couple on the wall of the future.  Nevertheless her love had been all maternal to him when he lay chastised and disgraced on account of his vice.  Pity had done it.  Pity not being stirred, her admiration of the hero declared victorious, whose fortunes in uncertainty had stopped the beating of her heart, was eclipsed by gratitude toward his preserver, and a sentiment eclipsed becomes temporarily coldish, against our wish and our efforts, in a way to astonish; making her think that she cannot hold two sentiments at a time; when it is but the fact that she is unable to keep the two equally warm.