Thus, at the edge of the debate, or contest, the young lord’s essential nobility disarmed him; and the revealing of it, which would have appealed to Carinthia and Chillon both, was forbidden by its constituent pride, which helped him to live and stood obstructing explanatory speech.

CHAPTER XLIV

BETWEEN THE EARL, THE COUNTESS AND HER BROTHER, AND OF A SILVER CROSS

Carinthia was pleased by hearing Lord Fleetwood say to her:  ’Your Madge and my Gower are waiting to have the day named for them.’

She said:  ’I respect him so much for his choice of Madge.  They shall not wait, if I am to decide.’

‘Old Mr. Woodseer has undertaken to join them.’

‘It is in Whitechapel they will be married.’

The blow that struck was not intended, and Fleetwood passed it, under her brother’s judicial eye.  Any small chance word may carry a sting for the neophyte in penitence.

’My lawyers will send down the settlement on her, to be read to them to-day or to-morrow.  With the interest on that and the sum he tells me he has in the Funds, they keep the wolf from the door—­a cottage door.  They have their cottage.  There’s an old song of love in a cottage.  His liking for it makes him seem wiser than his clever sayings.  He’ll work in that cottage.’

’They have a good friend to them in you, my lord.  It will not be poverty for their simple wants.  I hear of the little cottage in Surrey where they are to lodge at first, before they take one of their own.’

‘We will visit them.’

‘When I am in England I shall visit them often.’

He submitted.

‘The man up here wounded is recovering?’

’Yes, my lord.  I am learning to nurse the wounded, with the surgeon to direct me.’

‘Matters are sobering down?—­The workmen?’

‘They listen to reason so willingly when we speak personally, we find.’

The earl addressed Chillon.  ’Your project of a Spanish expedition reminds me of favourable reports of your chief.’

‘Thoroughly able and up to the work,’ Chillon answered.

‘Queer people to meddle with.’

’We ‘re on the right side on the dispute.’

‘It counts, Napoleon says.  A Spanish civil war promises bloody doings.’

‘Any war does that.’

‘In the Peninsula it’s war to the knife, a merciless business.’

‘Good schooling for the profession.’

Fleetwood glanced:  she was collected and attentive.  ’I hear from Mrs.
Levellier that Carinthia would like to be your companion.’

‘My sister has the making of a serviceable hospital nurse.’

‘You hear the chatter of London!’

‘I have heard it.’

‘You encourage her, Mr. Levellier?’

‘She will be useful—­better there than here, my lord.’

‘I claim a part in the consultation.’