’But, Lady Camper, if I denude myself or curtail my income—­a man at his wife’s discretion, I was saying a man at his wife’s mercy . . . !’

General Ople was really forced, by his manly dignity, to make this protest on its behalf.  He did not see how he could have escaped doing so; he was more an agent than a principal.  ‘My wife’s mercy,’ he said again, but simply as a herald proclaiming superior orders.

Lady Camper’s brows were wrathful.  A deep blood-crimson overcame the rouge, and gave her a terrible stormy look.

‘The congress now ceases to sit, and the treaty is not concluded,’ was all she said.

She rose, bowed to him, ‘Good morning, General,’ and turned her back.

He sighed.  He was a free man.  But this could not be denied—­whatever the lady’s age, she was a grand woman in her carriage, and when looking angry, she had a queenlike aspect that raised her out of the reckoning of time.

So now he knew there was a worse behind what he had previously known.  He was precipitate in calling it the worst.  ‘Now,’ said he to himself, ’I know the worst!’

No man should ever say it.  Least of all, one who has entered into relations with an eccentric lady.

CHAPTER VI

Politeness required that General Ople should not appear to rejoice in his dismissal as a suitor, and should at least make some show of holding himself at the beck of a reconsidering mind.  He was guilty of running up to London early next day, and remaining absent until nightfall; and he did the same on the two following days.  When he presented himself at Lady Camper’s lodge-gates, the astonishing intelligence, that her ladyship had departed for the Continent and Egypt gave him qualms of remorse, which assumed a more definite shape in something like awe of her triumphant constitution.  He forbore to mention her age, for he was the most honourable of men, but a habit of tea-table talkativeness impelled him to say and repeat an idea that had visited him, to the effect, that Lady Camper was one of those wonderful women who are comparable to brilliant generals, and defend themselves from the siege of Time by various aggressive movements.  Fearful of not being understood, owing to the rarity of the occasions when the squat plain squad of honest Saxon regulars at his command were called upon to explain an idea, he re-cast the sentence.  But, as it happened that the regulars of his vocabulary were not numerous, and not accustomed to work upon thoughts and images, his repetitions rather succeeded in exposing the piece of knowledge he had recently acquired than in making his meaning plainer.  So we need not marvel that his acquaintances should suppose him to be secretly aware of an extreme degree in which Lady Camper was a veteran.