‘Mama!’ said Nesta, ready to be entranced by kitchens in her bubbling animation:  she meant the recalling of instances of the conspirator her father had been.

‘You none of you guessed Armandine’s business!’ Victor cried, in a glee that pushed to make the utmost of this matter and count against chagrin.  ’She was off to Paris; went to test the last inventions:—­French brains are always alert:—­and in fact, those kitchen-ranges, gas and coal, and the apparatus for warming plates and dishes, the whole of the battery is on the model of the Duc d’Ariane’s—­finest in Europe.  Well,’ he agreed with Colney, ‘to say France is enough.’

Mr. Pempton spoke to Miss Graves of the task for a woman to conduct a command so extensive.  And, as when an inoffensive wayfarer has chanced to set foot near a wasp’s nest, out on him came woman and her champions, the worthy and the sham, like a blast of powder.

Victor ejaculated:  ‘Armandine!’ Whoever doubted her capacity, knew not Armandine; or not knowing Armandine, knew not the capacity in women.

With that utterance of her name, he saw the orangey spot on London Bridge, and the sinking Tower and masts and funnels, and the rising of them, on his return to his legs; he recollected, that at the very edge of the fall he had Armandine strongly in his mind.  She was to do her part:  Fenellan and Colney on the surface, she below:  and hospitality was to do its part, and music was impressed—­the innocent Concerts; his wealth, all his inventiveness were to serve;—­and merely to attract and win the tastes of people, for a social support to Lakelands!  Merely that?  Much more:—­if Nataly’s coldness to the place would but allow him to form an estimate of how much.  At the same time, being in the grasp of his present disappointment, he perceived a meanness in the result, that was astonishing and afflicting.  He had not ever previously felt imagination starving at the vision of success.  Victor had yet to learn, that the man with a material object in aim, is the man of his object; and the nearer to his mark, often the farther is he from a sober self; he is more the arrow of his bow than bow to his arrow.  This we pay for scheming:  and success is costly; we find we have pledged the better half of ourselves to clutch it; not to be redeemed with the whole handful of our prize!  He was, however, learning after his leaping fashion.  Nataly’s defective sympathy made him look at things through the feelings she depressed.  A shadow of his missed Idea on London Bridge seemed to cross him from the close flapping of a wing within reach.  He could say only, that it would, if caught, have been an answer to the thought disturbing him.

Nataly drew Colney Durance with her eyes to step beside her, on the descent to the terrace.  Little Skepsey hove in sight, coming swift as the point of an outrigger over the flood.

CHAPTER X