‘Pray, don’t speak excitedly, my love,’ he replied to the woman whose tones had been subdued to scarce more than waver.  ’You see how I meet it:  water off a duck’s back, or Indian solar beams on the skin of a Hindoo!  I despise it hardly worth contempt;—­But, come:  our day was a good one.  Fenellan worked well.  Old Colney was Colney Durance, of course.  He did no real mischief.’

‘And you will not determine to enter Lakelands—­not yet, dear?’ said Nataly.

‘My own girl, leave it all to me.’

‘But, Victor, I must, must know.’

’See the case.  You have lots of courage.  We can’t withdraw.  Her intention is mischief.  I believe the woman keeps herself alive for it:  we’ve given her another lease!—­though it can only be for a very short time; Themison is precise; Carling too.  If we hold back—­I have great faith in Themison—­the woman’s breath on us is confirmed.  We go down, then; complete the furnishing, quite leisurely; accept—­listen—­accept one or two invitations:  impossible to refuse!—­but they are accepted!—­and we defy her:  a crazy old creature:  imagines herself the wife of the ex-Premier, widow of Prince Le Boo, engaged to the Chinese Ambassador, et caetera.  Leave the tussle with that woman to me.  No, we don’t repeat the error of Crayc Farm and Creckholt.  And here we have stout friends.  Not to speak of Beaver Urmsing:  a picture of Old Christmas England!  You took to him?—­must have taken to Beaver Urmsing!  The Marigolds!  And Sir Rodwell and Lady Blachington are altogether above the mark of Sir Humphrey and Lady Pottil, and those half and half Mountneys.  There’s a warm centre of home in Lakelands.  But I know my Nataly:  she is thinking of our girl.  Here is the plan:  we stand our ground:  my dear soul won’t forsake me only there’s the thought of Fredi, in the event . . . improbable enough.  I lift Fredi out of the atmosphere awhile; she goes to my cousins the Duvidney ladies.’

Nataly was hit by a shot.  ‘Can you imagine it, Victor?’

‘Regard it as done.’

‘They will surely decline!’

‘Their feeling for General Radnor is a worship.’

‘All the more . . . ?’

’The son inherits it.  He goes to them personally.  Have you ever known me personally fail?  Fredi stays at Moorsedge for a month or two.  Dorothea and Virginia Duvidney will give her a taste of a new society; good for the girl.  All these little shiftings can be turned to good.  Meantime, I say, we stand our ground:  but you are not to be worried; for though we have gone too far to recede, we need not and we will not make the entry into Lakelands until—­you know:  that is, auspiciously, to suit you in every way.  Thus I provide to meet contingencies.  What one may really fancy is, that the woman did but threaten.  There’s her point of view to be considered:  silly, crazy; but one sees it.  We are not sure that she struck a blow at Craye or Creckholt.  I wonder she never wrote.  She was frightened, when she came to manage her property, of signing her name to anything.  Absurd, that sending of Jarniman!  However, it’s her move; we make a corresponding disposition of our chessmen.’