Chillon and Carinthia journeyed to London for purchases and a visit to lawyer, banker, and tradesmen, on their way to meet his chief and Owain Wythan at Southampton.  They lunched with Livia.  The morrow was the great Calesford day; Henrietta carolled of it.  Lady Arpington had been afllictingly demure on the theme of her presence at Calesford within her term of mourning.  ’But I don’t mourn, and I’m not related to the defunct, and I can’t be denied the pleasure invented for my personal gratification,’ Henrietta’s happy flippancy pouted at the prudish objections.  Moreover, the adored Columelli was to be her slave of song.  The termination of the London season had been postponed a whole week for Calesford:  the utmost possible strain; and her presence was understood to represent the Countess of Fleetwood, temporarily in decorous retirement.  Chillon was assured by her that the earl had expressed himself satisfied with his wife’s reasonableness.  ‘The rest will follow.’  Pleading on the earl’s behalf was a vain effort, but she had her grounds for painting Lord Fleetwood’s present mood to his countess in warm colours.  ’Nothing short of devotion, Chillon!’ London’s extreme anxiety to see them united, and the cause of it, the immense good Janey could do to her country, should certainly be considered by her, Henrietta said.  She spoke feverishly.  A mention of St. Jean de Luz for a residence inflicted, it appeared, a more violent toothache than she had suffered from the proposal of quarters in Cadiz.  And now her husband had money? . . . she suggested his reinstatement in the English army.  Chillon hushed that:  his chief had his word.  Besides, he wanted schooling in war.  Why had he married!  His love for her was the answer; and her beauty argued for the love.  But possessing her, he was bound to win her a name.  So his reasoning ran to an accord with his military instincts and ambition.  Nevertheless, the mournful strange fact she recalled, that they had never waltzed together since they were made one, troubled his countenance in the mirror of hers.  Instead of the waltz, grief, low worries, dulness, an eclipse of her, had been the beautiful creature’s portion.

It established mighty claims to a young husband’s indulgence.  She hummed a few bars of his favourite old Viennese waltz, with ‘Chillon!’ invitingly and reproachfully.  His loathing of Lord Fleetwood had to withstand an envious jump at the legs in his vison of her partner on the morrow.  He said:  ‘You’ll think of some one absent.’

‘You really do wish me to go, my darling?  It is Chillon’s wish?’ She begged for the words; she had them, and then her feverishness abated to a simple sparkling composure.