I can neither command nor influence. I should have thought Gower
Woodseer would have kept his wits.'

Fleetwood's look fell on Madge amid the group. Gower's perception of her
mistress through the girl's devotion to her moved him. He took Madge by
the hand, and the sensation came that it was the next thing to pressing
his wife's. 'You're a loyal girl. You have a mistress it 's an honour to
serve. You bind me. By the way, Ines shall run down for a minute before I
go.'

'Let him stay where he is,'' Madge said, having bobbed her curtsey.

'Oh, if he's not to get a welcome!' said the earl; and he could now fix a
steadier look on his countess, who would have animated him with either a
hostile face or a tender. She had no expression of a feeling. He bent to
her formally.

Carinthia's words were: 'Adieu, my lord.'

'I have only to say, that Esslemont is ready to receive you,' he
remarked, bowed more curtly, and walked out. . .

Gower followed him. They might as well have been silent, for any effect
from what was uttered between them. They spoke opinions held by each of
them--adverse mainly; speaking for no other purpose than to hold their
positions.

'Oh, she has courage, no doubt; no one doubted it,' Fleetwood said, out
of all relation to the foregoing.

Courage to grapple with his pride and open his heart was wanting in him.

Had that been done, even to the hint of it, instead of the lordly
indifference shown, Gower might have ventured on a suggestion, that the
priceless woman he could call wife was fast slipping away from him and
withering in her allegiance. He did allude to his personal sentiment.
'One takes aim at Philosophy; Lady Fleetwood pulls us up to pay tribute
to our debts.' But this was vague, and his hearer needed a present
thunder and lightning to shake and pierce him.

'I pledged myself to that yacht,' said Fleetwood, by way of reply, 'or
you and I would tramp it, as we did once-jolly old days! I shall have you
in mind. Now turn back. Do the best you can.'

They parted midway up the street, Gower bearing away a sharp contrast of
the earl and his countess; for, until their senses are dulled,
impressionable young men, however precociously philosophical, are
mastered by appearances; and they have to reflect under new lights before
vision of the linked eye and mind is given them.

Fleetwood jumped into his carriage and ordered the coachman to drive
smartly. He could not have admitted the feeling small