St. Ombre ’s a cool player; that ’s at the bottom of the story.  He’s cool because play doesn’t bite him, as it did Ambrose.  I should say the other passion has never bitten him.  And he’s alive and presentable; Ambrose under a sheet, with Chummy Potts to watch.  Chummy cried like a brat in the street for his lost mammy.  I left him crying and sobbing.  They have their feelings, these “children of vapour,” as you call them.  But how did I fall into the line with a set I despised?  She had my opinion of her gamblers, and retorted that young Cressett’s turn for the fling is my doing.  I can’t swear it’s not.  There’s one of my sins.  What’s to wipe them out!  She has a tender feeling for the boy; confessed she wanted governing.  Why; she’s young, in a way.  She has that particular vice of play.  She might be managed.  Here’s a lesson for her!  Don’t you think she might?  The right man,—­the man she can respect, fancy incorruptible!  He must let her see he has an eye for tricks.  She’s not responsible for—­his mad passion was the cause, cause of everything he did.  The kind of woman to send the shaft.  You called her “Diana seated.”  You said, “She doesn’t hunt, she sits and lets fly her arrow.”  Well, she showed feeling for young Cressett, and her hit at me was an answer.  It struck me on the mouth.  But she’s an eternal anxiety.  A man she respects!  A man to govern her!’

Fleetwood hurried his paces.  ’I couldn’t have allowed poor Ambrose.  Besides, he had not a chance—­never had in anything.  It wants a head, wants the man who can say no to her.  “The Reveller’s Aurora,” you called her.  She has her beauty, yes.  She respects you.  I should be relieved —­a load off me!  Tell her, all debts paid; fifty thousand invested, in her name and her husband’s.  Tell her, speak it, there’s my consent—­if only the man to govern her!  She has it from me, but repeat it, as from me.  That sum and her portion would make a fair income for the two.  Relieved?  By heaven, what a relief!  Go early.  Coach to Esslemont at eleven.  Do my work there.  I haven’t to repeat my directions.  I shall present myself two days after.  I wish Lady Fleetwood to do the part of hostess at Calesford.  Tell her I depute you to kiss my son for me.  Now I leave you.  Good-night.  I shan’t sleep.  I remember your saying, “bad visions come under the eyelids.”  I shall keep mine open and read—­read her father’s book of the Maxims; I generally find two or three at a dip to stimulate.  No wonder she venerates him.  That sort of progenitor is your “permanent aristocracy.”  Hard enemy.  She must have some of her mother in her, too.  Abuse me to her, admit the justice of reproaches, but say, reason, good feeling—­I needn’t grind at it.  Say I respect her.  Advise her to swallow the injury—­not intended for insult.  I don’t believe anything higher than respect can be offered to a woman.  No defence of me to her, but I’ll tell you, that when I undertook to keep my word with her, I plainly said—­never mind; good-night.  If we meet in the morning, let this business rest until it ’s done.  I must drive to help poor Chums and see about the Inquest.’