he bosom of
his wife. She did no harm there, he knew well. Although he was not a man
to put his trust in faces, as his young secretary inclined to do, Mrs.
Lawrence's look of honest boy did count among the pleadings. And somewhat
so might a government cruiser observe the intrusion of a white-sailed
yacht in protected sea-waters, where licenced trawlers are at the haul.

Talk over the table coursed as fluently as might be, with Mrs. Pagnell
for a boulder in the stream. Uninformed by malice, she led up to Lord
Adderwood's name, and perhaps more designedly spoke of Mr. Morsfield, on
whom her profound reading into the female heart of the class above her
caused her to harp, as 'a real Antinous,' that the ladies might discuss
him and Lord Ormont wax meditative.

Mrs. Lawrence pitied the patient gentleman, while asking him in her mind
who was the author of the domestic burden he had to bear.

'It reminds me I have a mission,' she said. 'There's a fencing match down
at a hall in the West, near the barracks; private and select: Soldier and
Civilian; I forget who challenged--Civilian, one judges; Soldiers are the
peaceful party. They want you to act "umpire," as they call it, on the
military side, my dear lord; and you will?--I have given my word you will
bring Lady Ormont. You will?--and not let me be confounded! Yes, and we
shall make a party. I see consent. Aminta will enjoy the switch of steel.
I love to see fencing. It rouses all that is diabolical in me.'

She sent a skimming look at the opposite.

'And I,' said he, much freshened.

'You fence?'

'Handle the foils.'

'If you must speak modestly! Are you in practice?'

'I spend in hour in Captain Chiallo's fencing rooms generally every
evening before dinner. I heard there the first outlines of the match
proposed. You are right; it was the civilian.'

'Mr. Morsfield, as I suspected.'

She smiled to herself, like one saying, Not badly managed, Mr. Morsfield!

'Italian school?' Lord Ormont inquired, with a screw of the eyelids.

'French, my lord.'

'The only school for teaching.'

'The simplest--has the most rational method. Italians are apt to be
tricky. But they were masters once, and now and then they send out a
fencer the French can't touch.'

'How would you account for it?'

'If I had to account for it, I should say, hotter blood, cool nerve,
quick brain.'

'Hum. Where are we, then?'

'We don't shine with the small sword.'

'We had men neatly pink