into him and laid him flat. It pleased him to assure her that his mates
were men of their word, and had promised to pay the old lord with a
'rouse' for it, nothing worse. Her father used to speak of the 'clean
hearts of the English' as to the husbanding of revenge; that is, the
'no spot of bad blood' to vitiate them. Captain John Peter seconded all
good-humoured fighters 'for the long account': they will surely win; and
it was one of his maxims: 'My foe can spoil my face; he beats me if he
spoils my temper.'

Recalling the scene of her bridal day--the two strong Englishmen at
the shake of hands, that had spoiled one another's faces, she was
enlightened with a comprehension of her father's love for the people;
seeing the spiritual of the gross ugly picture, as not every man can
do, and but a warrior Joan among women. Chillon shall teach the Spanish
people English heartiness, she thought. Lord Fleetwood's remarks on the
expedition would have sufficed to stamp it righteous with her; that was
her logic of the low valuation of him. She fancied herself absolutely
released at his departure. Neither her sister Riette nor her friend
Owain, administering sentiment and common sense to her by turns, could
conceive how the passion for the recovery of her brother's military name
fed the hope that she might aid in it, how the hope fed the passion.
She had besides her hunger to be at the work she could do; her Chillon's
glory for morning sky above it.

Such was the mind Lady Arpington brought the world's wisdom to bear
upon; deeming it in the end female only in its wildness and obstinacy.
Carinthia's answers were few, barely varied. Her repetition of 'my
brother' irritated the great lady, whose argument was directed to make
her see that these duties toward her brother were primarily owing to her
husband, the man she would reclaim and could guide. And the Countess of
Fleetwood's position, her duty to society, her dispensing of splendid
hospitality, the strengthening of her husband to do his duty to the
nation, the saving of him from a fatal step-from Rome; these were
considerations for a reasonable woman to weigh before she threw up all
to be off on the maddest of adventures. 'Inconceivable, my dear child!'
Lady Arpington proceeded until she heard herself as droning.

Carinthia's unmoved aspect of courteous attention appeared to invoke
the prolongation of the sermon it criticized. It had an air of
reversing their positions while she