ep from using those words. I have no right to refuse the entry
of the house to you.'

'If I come in?'

'I guard my rooms.'

She had been awake, then, to the thrusting and parrying behind masked
language.

'Good. You are quite decided, I may suppose.'

'I will leave them when I have a little money, or when I know of how I
may earn some.'

'The Countess of Fleetwood earning a little money?'

'I can put aside your title, my lord.'

'No, you can't put it aside while the man with the title lives, not even
if you're running off in earnest, under a dozen Welsh names. Why should
you desire to do it? The title entitles you to the command of half my
possessions. As to the house; don't be alarmed; you will not have to
guard your rooms. The extraordinary wild animal you--the impression may
have been produced; I see, I see. If I were in the house, I should not be
rageing at your doors; and it is not my intention to enter the house.
That is, not by right of ownership. You have my word.'

He bowed to her, and walked to the stables.

She had the art of extracting his word from him. The word given, she went
off with it, disengaged mistress of Esslemont. And she might have the
place for residence, but a decent courtesy required that she should
remain at the portico until he was out of sight. She was the first out of
sight, rather insolently.

She returned him without comment the spell he had cast on her, and he was
left to estimate the value of a dirited piece of metal not in the
currency, stamped false coin. An odd sense of impoverishment chilled him.
Chilly weather was afflicting the whole country, he was reminded, and he
paced about hurriedly until his horses were in the shafts. After all, his
driving away would be much more expected of him than a stay at the house
where the Whitechapel Countess resided, chill, dry, talking the language
of early Exercises in English, suitable to her Welshmen. Did she 'Owain'
them every one?

As he whipped along the drive and left that glassy stare of Esslemont
behind him, there came a slap of a reflection:--here, on the box of this
coach, the bride just bursting her sheath sat, and was like warm wax to
take impressions. She was like hard stone to retain them, pretty
evidently. Like women the world over, she thinks only of her side of the
case. Men disdain to plead theirs. Now money is offered her, she declines
it. Formerly, she made it the principal subject of her conversation.

Turn