Riddles to the thwarted young, these old people will not consent to be read by sensations.  Carinthia watched his jaws at their work of eating under his victim’s eye-knowing Chillon to be no longer an officer in the English service; knowing that her beloved had sold out for the mere money to pay debts and support his Henrietta; knowing, as he must know, that Chillon’s act struck a knife to pierce his mother’s breast through her coffin-boards!  This old man could eat, and he could withhold the means due to his dead sister’s son.  Could he look on Chillon and not feel that the mother’s heart was beating in her son’s fortunes?  Half the money due to Chillon would have saved him from ruin.

Lord Levellier laid his fork on the plate.  He munched his grievance with his bit of meat.  The nephew and niece here present feeding on him were not so considerate as the Welsh gentleman, a total stranger, who had walked up to Lekkatts with the Countess of Fleetwood, and expressed the preference to feed at an inn.  Relatives are cormorants.

His fork on his plate released the couple.  Barely half a dozen words, before the sitting to that niggard restoration, had informed Carinthia of the step taken by her brother.  She beckoned him to follow her.

’The worst is done now, Chillon.  I am silent.  Uncle is a rock.  You say we must not offend.  I have given him my whole mind.  Say where Riette is to live.’

’Her headquarters will be here, at a furnished house.  She’s, with her cousin, the Dowager.’

‘Yes.  She should be with me.’

’She wants music.  She wants—­poor girl! let her have what comes to her.’

Their thoughts beneath their speech were like fish darting under shadow of the traffic bridge.

‘She loves music,’ said Carinthia; ’it is almost life to her, like fresh air to me.  Next month I am in London; Lady Arpington is kind.  She will give me as much of their polish as I can take.  I dare say I should feel the need of it if I were an enlightened person.’

‘For instance, did I hear “Owain,” when your Welsh friend was leaving?’ Chillon asked.

‘It was his dying wife’s wish, brother.’

‘Keep to the rules, dear.’

‘They have been broken, Chillon.’

‘Mend them.’

‘That would be a step backward.’

‘"The right one for defence!” father says.’

‘Father says, “The habit of the defensive paralyzes will."’

’"Womanizes,” he says, Carin.  You quote him falsely, to shield the sex.  Quite right.  But my sister must not be tricky.  Keep to the rules.  You’re an exceptional woman, and it would be a good argument, if you were not in an exceptional position.’

‘Owain is the exceptional man, brother.’

‘My dear, after all, you have a husband.’

’I have a brother, I have a friend, I have no—­I am a man’s wife and the mother of his child; I am free, or husband would mean dungeon.  Does my brother want an oath from me?  That I can give him.’