She spared him the my lording as she said adieu, sensitive as she was, and to his perception now.

Lady Arpington had a satisfactory two minutes with him before he left the house.  London town, on the great day at Calesford, interchanged communications, to the comforting effect, that the Countess of Fleetwood would reign over the next entertainment.

CHAPTER XLVII

THE LAST:  WITH A CONCLUDING WORD BY THE DAME

It is of seemingly good augury for the cause of a suppliant man, however little for the man himself, when she who has much to pardon can depict him in a manner that almost smiles, not unlike a dandling nurse the miniature man-child sobbing off to sleep after a frenzy; an example of a genus framed for excuses, and he more than others.  Chillon was amused up to inquisitive surprise by Carinthia’s novel idea of her formerly dreaded riddle of a husband.  As she sketched the very rational alliance proposed to her, and his kick at the fetters of Calesford, a shadowy dash for an image of the solicitous tyrant was added perforce to complete the scene; following which, her head moved sharply, the subject was flung over her shoulder.

She was developing; she might hold her ground with the husband, if the alliance should be resumed; and she would be a companion for Henrietta in England:  she was now independent, as to money, and she could break an intolerable yoke without suffering privation.  He kept his wrath under, determined not to use his influence either way, sure though he was of her old father’s voting for her to quit the man and enter the field where qualities would be serviceable.  The man probably feared a scandal more than the loss of his wife in her going.  He had never been thrashed—­the sole apology Chillon discovered for him, in a flushed review of the unavenged list of injuries Carinthia had sustained.  His wise old father insisted on the value of an early thrashing to trim and shape the growth of most young men.  There was no proof of Lord Fleetwood’s having schemed to thwart his wager, so he put that accusation by:  thinking for an instant, that if the man desired to have his wife with him, and she left the country with her brother, his own act would recoil; or if she stayed to hear of a villany, Carinthia’s show of scorn could lash.  Henrietta praised my lord’s kindness.  He had been one of the adorers—­as what man would not be!—­and upon her at least (he could hardly love her husband) he had not wreaked his disappointment.  A young man of huge wealth, having nothing to do but fatten his whims, is the monster a rich country breeds under the blessing of peace.  His wife, if a match for him, has her work traced out:—­mean work for the child of their father, Chillon thought.  She might be doing braver, more suitable to the blood in her veins.  But women have to be considered as women, not as possible heroines; and supposing she held her own with this husband of hers, which meant, judging by the view of their unfolded characters at present, a certain command of the freakish beast; she, whatever her task, would not be the one set trotting.  He came to his opinion through the estimate he had recently formed of Lord Fleetwood, and a study of his changed sister.