zle. You do
me and every one of us a service past paying. Not a man of her set
worth.... She--but you'll stop it; no one else can. Of course, you've
had your breakfast. Off, and walk yourself into a talkative mood, as you
tell me you do.'

'One of the things I do when I've nobody to hear,' said Gower,
speculating whether the black sprite in this young nobleman was for
sending him as a rod to scourge the lady: an ingenious device, that
smelt of mediaeval Courts and tickled his humour.

'Will she listen?' he said gravely.

'She will listen; she has not to learn you admire. You admit she
has helped to trim and polish, and the rest. She declares you're
incorruptible. There's the ground open. I fling no single sovereign more
into that quicksand, and I want not one word further on the subject. I
follow you to Esslemont. Pray, go.'

Fleetwood pushed into the hall. A footman was ordered to pack and
deposit Mr. Woodseer's portmanteau at the coach-office.

'The principal point is to make sure we have all the obligations,' Gower
said.

'You know the principal point,' said the earl. 'Relieve me.'

He faced to the opening street door. Lord Feltre stood in the framing
of it--a welcome sight. The 'monastic man of fashion,' of Gower's phrase
for him, entered, crooning condolences, with a stretched waxen hand for
his friend, a partial nod for Nature's worshipper--inefficient at any
serious issue of our human affairs, as the earl would now discover.

Gower left the two young noblemen to their greetings. Happily for him,
philosophy, in the present instance, after a round of profundities,
turned her lantern upon the comic aspect of his errand. Considering
the Countess Livia, and himself, and the tyrant, who benevolently and
providentially, or sardonically, hurled them to their interview,
the situation was comic, certainly, in the sense of its being an
illumination of this life's odd developments. For thus had things
come about, that if it were possible even to think of the lady's
condescending, he, thanks to the fair one he would see before evening,
was armed and proof against his old infatuation or any renewal of it.
And he had been taught to read through the beautiful twilighted woman,
as if she were burnt paper held at the fire consuming her. His hopes
hung elsewhere. Nevertheless, an intellectual demon-imp very lively
in his head urged him to speculate on such a contest between them, and
weigh the engaging forces. Difficultie