Now this was a second breach of the implied convention existing among the exquisitely fine-bred silken-slender on the summits of our mundane sphere, which demands of them all, that they respect one another’s affectations.  It is commonly done, and so the costly people of a single pattern contrive to push forth, flatteringly to themselves, luxuriant shoots of individuality in their orchidean glass-house.  A violation of the rule is a really deadly personal attack.  Captain Cumnock was particularly sensitive regarding it, inasmuch as he knew himself not the natural performer he strove to be, and a mimicry affected him as a haunting check.

He burst out:  ’Damned if I don’t understand why you’re hated by men and women both!’

Morsfield took a shock.  ‘Infernal hornet!’ he muttered; for his conquests had their secret history.

’May and his wife have a balance to pay will trip you yet, you ‘ll find.’

‘Reserve your wrath, sir, for the man who stretched you on your back.’

The batteries of the two continued exchangeing redhot shots, with the effect, that they had to call to mind they were looking at the stile.  A path across a buttercup meadow was beyond it.  They were damped to some coolness by the sight.

‘Upon my word, the trick seems neat!’ said Cumnock staring at the pastoral curtain.

‘Whose trick?’ he was asked sternly.

’Here or there ’s not much matter; they ’re off, unless they ’re under a hedge laughing.’

An ache of jealousy and spite was driven through the lover, who groaned, and presently said—­

’I ride on.  That old woman can follow.  I don’t want to hear her gibberish.  We’ve lost the game—­there ’s no reckoning the luck.  If there’s a chance, it’s this way.  It smells a trick.  He and she—­by all the devils!  It has been done in my family—­might have been done again.  Tell the men on the plain they can drive home.  There’s a hundred-pound weight on your tongue for silence.’

Cumnock cried:  ’But we needn’t be parting, Dolf!  Stick together.  Bad luck’s not repeated every day.  Keep heart for the good.’

’My heart’s shattered, Cumnock.  I say it’s impossible she can love a husband twice her age, who treats her—­you ’ve seen.  Contempt of that lady!

By heaven! once in my power, I swear she would have been sacred to me.  But she would have been compelled to face the public and take my hand.  I swear she would have been congratulated on the end of her sufferings.  Worship!—­that’s what I feel.  No woman ever alive had eyes in her head like that lady’s.  I repeat her name ten times every night before I go to sleep.  If I had her hand, no, not one kiss would I press on it without her sanction.  I could be in love with her cruelty, if only I had her near me.  I ’ve lost her—­by the Lord, I ‘ve lost her!’

‘Pro tem.,’ said the captain.  ’A plate of red beef and a glass of port wine alters the view.  Too much in the breast, too little in the belly, capsizes lovers.  Old story.  Horses that ought to be having a mash between their ribs make riders despond.  Say, shall we back to the town behind us, or on?  Back’s the safest, if the chase is up.’