Through so slight a fissure as this piece of discontent cracked in him, the crowd of his grievances with the woman rushed pell-mell, deluging young shoots of sweeter feelings.  She sulked!  If that woman could not get the command, he was to know her incapable of submission.  After besmutting the name she had filched from him, she let him understand that there was no intention to repent.  Possibly she meant war.  In which case a man must fly, or stand assailed by the most intolerable of vulgar farces;—­to be compared to a pelting of one on the stage.

The time came for him to knock at doors and face his public.

CHAPTER XXVIII

BY CONCESSIONS TO MISTRESS GOSSIP A FURTHER INTRUSION IS AVERTED

Livia welcomed him, with commiserating inquiry behind her languid eyelids.  ‘You have all the latest?’ it said.

He struck on the burning matter.

‘You wish to know the part you have to play, ma’am.’  ‘Tell me, Russett.’

‘You will contradict nothing.’

Her eyebrows asked, ‘It means?’

‘You have authority from me to admit the facts.’

‘They are facts?’ she remarked.

’Women love teasing round certain facts, apparently; like the Law courts over their pet cases.’

‘But, Russett, will you listen?’

‘Has the luck been civil of late?’

‘I think of something else at present.  No, it has not.’

‘Abrane?’

‘Pray, attend to me.  No, not Abrane.’

‘I believe you’ve all been cleared out in my absence.  St. Ombre?’

Her complexion varied.  ’Mr. Ambrose Mallard has once or twice . . .  But let me beg you—­the town is rageing with it.  My dear Russett, a bold front now; there ‘s the chance of your release in view.’

‘A rascal in view!  Name the sum.’

‘I must reckon.  My head is—­can you intend to submit?’

’So it’s Brosey Mallard now.  You choose your deputy queerly.  He’s as bad as Abrane, with steam to it.  Chummy Potts would have done better.’

’He wins one night; loses every pound-note he has the next; and comes vaunting—­the “dry still Sillery” of the establishment,—­a perpetual chorus to his losses!’

’His consolation to you for yours.  That is the gentleman.  Chummy doesn’t change.  Say, why not St. Ombre?  He’s cool.’

‘There are reasons.’

‘Let them rest.  And I have my reasons.  Do the same for them.’

‘Yours concern the honour of the family.’

‘Deeply:  respect them.’

’Your relatives have to be thought of, though they are few and not too pleasant.’

’If I had thought much of them, what would our relations be?  They object to dicing, and I to leading strings.’

She turned to a brighter subject, of no visible connection with the preceding.

‘Henrietta comes in May.’