nforming him that his lordship,
having waited for him according to promise, had now left England, and
presumed that the differences between them were to be settled by their
respective lawyers--infamous behaviour on a par with the rest of Lord
Highgate's villainy, the Baronet said. "When the scoundrel knew I
could lift my pistol arm," Barnes said, "Lord Highgate fled the
country;"--thus hinting that death, and not damages, were what he
intended to seek from his enemy.

After that interview in which Ethel communicated to Laura her farewell
letter to Lord Farintosh, my wife returned to Rosebury with an
extraordinary brightness and gaiety in her face and her demeanour. She
pressed Madame de Moncontour's hands with such warmth, she blushed and
looked so handsome, she sang and talked so gaily, that our host was
struck by her behaviour, and paid her husband more compliments regarding
her beauty, amiability, and other good qualities, than need be set down
here. It may be that I like Paul de Florac so much, in spite of certain
undeniable faults of character, because of his admiration for my wife.
She was in such a hurry to talk to me, that night, that Paul's game and
Nicotian amusements were cut short by her visit to the billiard-room;
and when we were alone by the cosy dressing-room fire, she told me
what had happened during the day. Why should Ethel's refusal of Lord
Farintosh have so much elated my wife?

"Ah!" cries Mrs. Pendennis, "she has a generous nature, and the world
has not had time to spoil it. Do you know there are many points that she
never has thought of--I would say problems that she has to work out for
herself, only you, Pen, do not like us poor ignorant women to use such a
learned word as problems? Life and experience force things upon her mind
which others learn from their parents or those who educate them, but,
for which she has never had any teachers. Nobody has ever told her,
Arthur, that it was wrong to marry without love, or pronounce lightly
those awful vows which we utter before God at the altar. I believe, if
she knew that her life was futile, it is but of late she has thought
it could be otherwise, and that she might mend it. I have read (besides
that poem of Goethe of which you are so fond) in books of Indian
travels of Bayaderes, dancing-girls brought up by troops round about the
temples, whose calling is to dance, and wear jewels, and look beautiful;
I believe they are quite respected in--in Pagod