‘Good!  I am glad to see you,’ he said.  ’Tell me you know Mr. Morsfield pretty well.  I’m speaking of my affair.  He has been trespassing down on my grounds at Steignton, and I think of taking the prosecution of him into my own hands.  Is he in town?’

’I ‘ve just left his lame devil Cumnock, my lord,’ said May, after a slight grimace.  ‘They generally run in tandem.’

‘Will you let me know?’

‘At once, when I hear.’

‘You will call on me?  Before noon?’

‘Any service required?’

‘My respects to your wife.’

‘Your lordship is very good.’

Captain May bloomed at a civility paid to his wife.  He was a smallish, springy, firm-faced man, devotee of the lady bearing his name and wielding him.  In the days when duelling flourished on our land, frail women could be powerful.

The earl turned from him to greet Lord Adderwood and a superior officer of his Profession, on whom he dropped a frigid nod.  He held that all but the rank and file, and a few subalterns, of the service had abandoned him to do homage to the authorities.  The Club he frequented was not his military Club.  Indeed, lunching at any Club in solitariness that day, with Aminta away from home, was bitter penance.  He was rejoiced by Lord Adderwood’s invitation, and hung to him after the lunch; for a horrible prospect of a bachelor dinner intimated astonishingly that he must have become unawares a domesticated man.

The solitary later meal of a bachelor was consumed, if the word will suit a rabbit’s form of feeding.  He fatigued his body by walking the streets and the bridge of the Houses of Parliament, and he had some sleep under a roof where a life like death, or death apeing life, would have seemed to him the Joshua Abnett, if he had been one to take up images.

Next day he was under the obligation to wait at home till noon.  Shortly before noon a noise of wheels drew him to the window.  A young lady, in whom he recognized Aminta’s little school friend, of some name, stepped out of a fly.  He met her in the hall.

She had expected to be welcomed by Aminta, and she was very timid on finding herself alone with the earl.  He, however, treated her as the harbinger bird, wryneck of the nightingale, sure that Aminta would keep her appointment unless an accident delayed.  He had forgotten her name, but not her favourite pursuit of botany; and upon that he discoursed, and he was interested, not quite independently of the sentiment of her being there as a guarantee of Aminta’s return.  Still he knew his English earth, and the counties and soil for particular wild-flowers, grasses, mosses; and he could instruct her and inspire a receptive pupil on the theme of birds, beasts, fishes, insects, in England and other lands.

He remained discoursing without much weariness till four of the afternoon.  Then he had his reward.  The chariot was at the door, and the mounted figure of Joshua Abnett, on which he cast not a look or a thought.  Aminta was alone.  She embraced Selina Collett warmly, and said, in friendly tones, ‘Ah! my lord, you are in advance of me.’