‘Lord Fleetwood was on the point of going in,’ he assured the great lady.

‘Lord Fleetwood may regret his change of mind,’ said she.  ’The Countess of Fleetwood will have my advice to keep her footing in this house.’

She and Henrietta sat alone with Carinthia for an hour.  Coming forth, Lady Arpington ejaculated to herself:  ’Villany somewhere!—­You will do well, Henrietta, to take up your quarters with her a day or two.  She can hold her position a month.  Longer is past possibility.’

A shudder of the repulsion from men crept over the younger lady.  But she was a warrior’s daughter, and observed:  ’My husband, her brother, will be back before the month ends.’

‘No need for hostilities to lighten our darkness,’ Lady Arpington rejoined.  ‘You know her? trust her?’

’One cannot doubt her face.  She is my husband’s sister.  Yes, I do trust her.  I nail my flag to her cause.’

The flag was crimson, as it appeared on her cheeks; and that intimated a further tale, though not of so dramatic an import as the cognizant short survey of Carinthia had been.

These young women, with the new complications obtruded by them, irritated a benevolent great governing lady, who had married off her daughters and embraced her grandchildren, comfortably finishing that chapter; and beheld now the apparition of the sex’s ancient tripping foe, when circumstances in themselves were quite enough to contend against on their behalf.  It seemed to say, that nature’s most burdened weaker must always be beaten.  Despite Henrietta’s advocacy and Carinthia’s clear face, it raised a spectral form of a suspicion, the more effective by reason of the much required justification it fetched from the shades to plead apologies for Lord Fleetwood’s erratic, if not mad, and in any case ugly, conduct.  What otherwise could be his excuse?  Such was his need of one, that the wife he crushed had to be proposed for sacrifice, in the mind of a lady tending strongly to side with her and condemn her husband.

Lady Arpington had counselled Carinthia to stay where she was, the Fates having brought her there.  Henrietta was too generous to hesitate in her choice between her husband’s sister and the earl.  She removed from Livia’s house to Lord Fleetwood’s.  My lord was at Esslemont two days; then established his quarters at Scrope’s hotel, five minutes’ walk from the wedded lady to whom the right to bear his title was granted, an interview with him refused.  Such a squaring for the battle of spouses had never—­or not in mighty London—­been seen since that old fight began.

CHAPTER XXVI

AFTER SOME FENCING THE DAME PASSES OUR GUARD

Dame Gossip at this present pass bursts to give us a review of the social world siding for the earl or for his countess; and her parrot cry of ‘John Rose Mackrell!’ with her head’s loose shake over the smack of her lap, to convey the contemporaneous tipsy relish of the rich good things he said on the subject of the contest, indicates the kind of intervention it would be.