Reviewing Mrs. Lawrence, Aminta’s real heart pressed forward at the beat, in tender pity of the woman for whom a yielding to love was to sin; and unwomanly is the woman who does not love:  men will say it.  Aminta found herself phrasing.  ’Why was she unable to love her husband?—­he is not old.’  She hurried in flight from the remark to confidences imparted by other ladies, showing strange veins in an earthy world; after which, her mind was bent to rebuke Mrs. Pagnell for the silly soul’s perpetual allusions to Lord Ormont’s age.  She did not think of his age.  But she was vividly thinking that she was young.  Young, married, loveless, cramped in her energies, publicly dishonoured—­a Lady Doubtful, courting one friend whom she liked among women, one friend whom she respected among men; that was the sketch of her.

That was in truth the outline, as much as Aminta dared sketch of herself without dragging her down lower than her trained instinct would bear to look.  Our civilization shuns nature; and most shuns it in the most artificially civilized, to suit the market.  They, however, are always close to their mother nature, beneath their second nature’s mask of custom; and Aminta’s unconscious concluding touch to the sketch:  ’My husband might have helped me to a footing in Society,’ would complete it as a coloured picture, if writ in tones.

She said it, and for the footing in Society she had lost her taste.

Mrs. Lawrence brought the final word from high quarters:  that the application must be deferred until Lord Ormont returned to town.  It was known before, that such would be the decision.  She had it from the eminent official himself, and she kicked about the room, setting her pretty mouth and nose to pout and sniff, exactly like a boy whose chum has been mishandled by a bully.

’Your dear good man is too much for us.  I thought we should drive him.  ‘C’est un ruse homme de guerre.’  I like him, but I could slap him.  He stops the way.  Upon my word, he seems tolerably careless of his treasure.  Does he suppose Mrs. Paggy is a protection?  Do you know she’s devoted to that man Morsfield?  He listens to her stories.  To judge by what he shouts aloud, he intends carrying you off the first opportunity, divorcing, and installing you in Cobeck Hall.  All he fears is, that your lord won’t divorce.  You should have seen him the other day; he marched up and down the room, smacking his head and crying out:  “Legal measures or any weapons her husband pleases!” For he has come to believe that the lady would have been off with him long before, if her lord had no claim to the marital title.  “It ’s that husband I can’t get over! that husband!” He reminded me, to the life, of Lawrence Finchley with a headache the morning after a supper, striding, with his hand on the shining middle of his head:  “It’s that Welsh rabbit! that Welsh rabbit!” He has a poor digestion, and he will eat cheese.  The Welsh rabbit chased him into his bed.  But listen to me, dear, about your Morsfield.  I told you he was dangerous.’