“But, ma’am, I shall not break my word; I shall not, not; I intend, I have resolved to keep it.  I do not fatalize, let my complexion be black or white.  Despite my resemblance to a high-caste malefactor of the Calcutta prison-wards . . .”

“Friend! friend! you know how I chatter.”

He saluted her finger-ends.  “Despite the extraordinary display of teeth, you will find me go to execution with perfect calmness; with a resignation as good as happiness.”

“Like a Jacobite lord under the Georges.”

“You have told me that you wept to read of one:  like him, then.  My principles have not changed, if I have.  When I was younger, I had an idea of a wife who would be with me in my thoughts as well as aims:  a woman with a spirit of romance, and a brain of solid sense.  I shall sooner or later dedicate myself to a public life; and shall, I suppose, want the counsellor or comforter who ought always to be found at home.  It may be unfortunate that I have the ideal in my head.  But I would never make rigorous demands for specific qualities.  The cruellest thing in the world is to set up a living model before a wife, and compel her to copy it.  In any case, here we are upon the road:  the die is cast.  I shall not reprieve myself.  I cannot release her.  Marriage represents facts, courtship fancies.  She will be cured by-and-by of that coveting of everything that I do, feel, think, dream, imagine . . . ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum.  Laetitia was invited here to show her the example of a fixed character—­solid as any concrete substance you would choose to build on, and not a whit the less feminine.”

“Ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum.  You need not tell me you have a design in all that you do, Willoughby Patterne.”

“You smell the autocrat?  Yes, he can mould and govern the creatures about him.  His toughest rebel is himself!  If you see Clara . . .  You wish to see her, I think you said?”

“Her behaviour to Lady Busshe last night was queer.”

“If you will.  She makes a mouth at porcelain.  Toujours la porcelaine!  For me, her pettishness is one of her charms, I confess it.  Ten years younger, I could not have compared them.”

“Whom?”

“Laetitia and Clara.”

“Sir Willoughby, in any case, to quote you, here we are all upon the road, and we must act as if events were going to happen; and I must ask her to help me on the subject of my wedding-present, for I don’t want to have her making mouths at mine, however pretty—­and she does it prettily.”

“‘Another dedicatory offering to the rogue in me!’ she says of porcelain.”

“Then porcelain it shall not be.  I mean to consult her; I have come determined upon a chat with her.  I think I understand.  But she produces false impressions on those who don’t know you both.  ’I shall have that porcelain back,’ says Lady Busshe to me, when we were shaking hands last night:  ‘I think,’ says she, ’it should have been the Willow Pattern.’  And she really said:  ’He’s in for being jilted a second time!’”