property of any kind to the common
estate; I neither look for it nor desire it. The generous thing for you
to do would be to give your daughter all you have, and come to me.'

'But, Lady Camper, if I denude myself or curtail my income--a man at his
wife's discretion, I was saying a man at his wife's mercy . . . !'

General Ople was really forced, by his manly dignity, to make this
protest on its behalf. He did not see how he could have escaped doing so;
he was more an agent than a principal. 'My wife's mercy,' he said again,
but simply as a herald proclaiming superior orders.

Lady Camper's brows were wrathful. A deep blood-crimson overcame the
rouge, and gave her a terrible stormy look.

'The congress now ceases to sit, and the treaty is not concluded,' was
all she said.

She rose, bowed to him, 'Good morning, General,' and turned her back.

He sighed. He was a free man. But this could not be denied--whatever the
lady's age, she was a grand woman in her carriage, and when looking
angry, she had a queenlike aspect that raised her out of the reckoning of
time.

So now he knew there was a worse behind what he had previously known. He
was precipitate in calling it the worst. 'Now,' said he to himself, 'I
know the worst!'

No man should ever say it. Least of all, one who has entered into
relations with an eccentric lady.

CHAPTER VI

Politeness required that General Ople should not appear to rejoice in his
dismissal as a suitor, and should at least make some show of holding
himself at the beck of a reconsidering mind. He was guilty of running up
to London early next day, and remaining absent until nightfall; and he
did the same on the two following days. When he presented himself at Lady
Camper's lodge-gates, the astonishing intelligence, that her ladyship had
departed for the Continent and Egypt gave him qualms of remorse, which
assumed a more definite shape in something like awe of her triumphant
constitution. He forbore to mention her age, for he was the most
honourable of men, but a habit of tea-table talkativeness impelled him to
say and repeat an idea that had visited him, to the effect, that Lady
Camper was one of those wonderful women who are comparable to brilliant
generals, and defend themselves from the siege of Time by various
aggressive movements. Fearful of not being understood, owing to the
rarity of the occasions when the squat plain squad of honest Saxon
regulars at his command were called