Sarcasm was in the tone, and beneath it a thrill of compassionateness traversed him and shot a remorseful sting with the vision of those two young women on the coach at the scene of the fight.  He had sentience of their voices, nigh to hearing them.  The forlorn bride’s hand given to the anxious girl behind her gushed an image of the sisterhood binding women under the pangs they suffer from men.  He craved a scourging that he might not be cursing himself; and he provoked it, for Gower was very sensitive to a cold breath on the weakness he had laid bare; and when Fleetwood said:  ‘You recommend a bath in the feelings of Madge Winch?’ the retort came:—­’It might stop you on the road to a cowl.’

Fleetwood put on the mask of cogitation to cover a shudder, ‘How?’

’A question of the man or the monk with you, as I fancy I’ve told you more than once!’

‘You may fancy committing any impertinence and be not much out.’

‘The saving of you is that you digest it when you’ve stewed it down.’

‘You try me!’

‘I don’t impose the connection.’

‘No, I take the blame for that.’

They sat in dumbness, fidgeted, sprang to their feet, and lighted bedroom candles.

Mounting the stairs, Gower was moved to let fall a benevolent look on the worried son of fortune.  ’I warned you I should try you.  It ought to be done politely.  If I have to speak a truth I ’m boorish.  The divinely damnable naked truth won’t wear ornaments.  It’s about the same as pitching a handful of earth.’

’You dirt your hands, hit or miss.  Out of this corridor!  Into my room, and spout your worst,’ cried the earl.

Gower entered his dressing-room and was bidden to smoke there.

’You’re a milder boor when you smoke.  That day down in Surrey with the grand old bootmaker was one of our days, Gower Woodseer!  There’s no smell of the boor in him.  Perhaps his religion helps him, more than Nature-worship:  not the best for manners.  You won’t smoke your pipe? —­a cigar?  Lay on, then, as hard as you like.’

‘You’re asking for the debauchee’s last luxury—­not a correction,’ said Gower, grimly thinking of how his whip might prove effective and punish the man who kept him fruitlessly out of his bed.

‘I want stuff for a place in the memory,’ said Fleetwood; and the late hour, with the profitless talk, made it a stinging taunt.

‘You want me to flick your indecision.’

‘That’s half a hit.’

’I ‘m to talk italics, for you to store a smart word or so.’

‘True, I swear!  And, please, begin.’

’You hang for the Fates to settle which is to be smothered in you, the man or the lord—­and it ends in the monk, if you hang much longer.’

‘A bit of a scorpion in his intention,’ Fleetwood muttered on a stride.  ’I’ll tell you this, Gower Woodseer; when you lay on in earnest, your diction is not so choice.  Do any of your remarks apply to Lady Fleetwood?’