The earl’s double-edged defence of her was partly a vindication of another husband, who allowed his wife to call her friend; he was nevertheless assured of her not being corrupt, both by his personal knowledge of the lady, and his perception of her image in the bosom of his wife.  She did no harm there, he knew well.  Although he was not a man to put his trust in faces, as his young secretary inclined to do, Mrs. Lawrence’s look of honest boy did count among the pleadings.  And somewhat so might a government cruiser observe the intrusion of a white-sailed yacht in protected sea-waters, where licenced trawlers are at the haul.

Talk over the table coursed as fluently as might be, with Mrs. Pagnell for a boulder in the stream.  Uninformed by malice, she led up to Lord Adderwood’s name, and perhaps more designedly spoke of Mr. Morsfield, on whom her profound reading into the female heart of the class above her caused her to harp, as ‘a real Antinous,’ that the ladies might discuss him and Lord Ormont wax meditative.

Mrs. Lawrence pitied the patient gentleman, while asking him in her mind who was the author of the domestic burden he had to bear.

‘It reminds me I have a mission,’ she said.  ’There’s a fencing match down at a hall in the West, near the barracks; private and select:  Soldier and Civilian; I forget who challenged—­Civilian, one judges; Soldiers are the peaceful party.  They want you to act “umpire,” as they call it, on the military side, my dear lord; and you will?—­I have given my word you will bring Lady Ormont.  You will?—­and not let me be confounded!  Yes, and we shall make a party.  I see consent.  Aminta will enjoy the switch of steel.  I love to see fencing.  It rouses all that is diabolical in me.’

She sent a skimming look at the opposite.

‘And I,’ said he, much freshened.

‘You fence?’

‘Handle the foils.’

‘If you must speak modestly!  Are you in practice?’

’I spend in hour in Captain Chiallo’s fencing rooms generally every evening before dinner.  I heard there the first outlines of the match proposed.  You are right; it was the civilian.’

‘Mr. Morsfield, as I suspected.’

She smiled to herself, like one saying, Not badly managed, Mr. Morsfield!

‘Italian school?’ Lord Ormont inquired, with a screw of the eyelids.

‘French, my lord.’

‘The only school for teaching.’

’The simplest—­has the most rational method.  Italians are apt to be tricky.  But they were masters once, and now and then they send out a fencer the French can’t touch.’

‘How would you account for it?’

’If I had to account for it, I should say, hotter blood, cool nerve, quick brain.’

‘Hum.  Where are we, then?’

‘We don’t shine with the small sword.’

‘We had men neatly pinked for their slashings in the Peninsula.’

‘We’ve had clever Irishmen.’