inveigle men; but in the
practice of it I am very sure that her dairymaid could have given her
lessons.

But what am I saying? Her poor coquetries did not deceive me, but
she never meant them to deceive me. They accomplished, after all,
just that for which she intended them. They deceived and maddened
her half-drunken lout of a husband. Her dress, too, was something
shameless. She wore above her scarlet skirt (which I verily believe
was the same she had ridden in) a bodice of the same bright colour,
low as a maid-of-honour's, that displayed her young neck and bust.
About her neck she had fastened a string of garnets. She had loaded
her fingers with old-fashioned rings, of which the very dullness made
me wince to see them employed in this sorry service. And I guessed
that before my entrance this unusual finery had provoked her husband
to fury.

A length of table lay between us and him. He sat silent, regarding
us under lowered brows, eating little, draining glass after glass.
Angry though he was, her voice seemed to lay a spell on him.
She talked of a thousand things, but especially of the Parliament
campaign, plying me with question after question--of our numbers, our
discipline, our hardships during the past three weeks, of our
general's plan of escape, and, in particular, of the part I had borne
in it. And when I answered she listened with smiles, as though King
and Parliament lay balanced in her affections. And this was the
termagant that a few hours ago had ridden us down and trampled across
poor Hutson's body!

All this I took at its true value, answering her with steady
politeness, telling myself that as her purpose was to goad her
husband, so no word of mine should give him an excuse for an
outbreak. It takes two to make a quarrel, they say. But when three
are mixed up in it (and one a woman), the third cannot always count
on remaining passive.

I had managed to tide over the meal with fair success. We had
reached the dessert, and Pascoe (whose presence may have laid some
restraint upon his master) had withdrawn. A dish of pears lay before
Lady Glynn, and she asked me to peel one for her. I know not if this
simple request laid the last straw on Sir Luke's endurance, but he
filled his glass again and said with brutal insolence,--

'You are fortunate, Captain Medhope, in exciting my wife's interest.
I assure you that until your gallantry bewitched her, she had been
used to speak of all rebels