ack,
and a sight it was--and damn it, so was she; and every man in the field
shouting with pleasure or laughter. And she snatched her hat off with
an oath and sat there as straight as a dart, but in a fury and winding
her coils up, with her cheeks as scarlet as her coat and cursing like a
young vagabond stable-boy between her teeth."

Dunstanwolde moved suddenly and almost overset his glass, but Roxholm
took his up and drained it with an unmoved countenance.

But he could see her sitting in her black hair, and could see, too, the
splendid scarlet on her angry cheek, and her eyes flashing wickedly.

"Tis not decent," cried Lord Twemlow, striking the table with his hand.
"If the baggage were not what she is, it would be bad enough, but there
is not a woman in England built so. 'Tis well Charles Stuart is not on
the throne, or she would outdo any Castlemaine that ever ruled him. And
'tis well that Louis is in France and that Maintenon keeps him sober.
She might retrieve her house's fortunes and rule at Court a Duchess;
but what decent man will look at her with her Billingsgate and her
breeches? A nice lady she would make for a gentleman! Any modest
snub-nosed girl would be better. There is scarce a week passes she does
not set the country by the ears with some fury or frolic. One time 'tis
clouting a Chaplain till his nose bleeds; next 'tis frightening some
virtuous woman of fashion into hysteric swooning with her impudent
flaming tongue. The women hate her, and she pays them out as _she_ only
can. Lady Maddon had fits for an hour, after an encounter with her, in
their meeting by chance one day at a mercer's in the county town. She
has the wit of a young she-devil and the temper of a tigress, and is so
tall, and towers so that she frightens them out of their senses."

My lord Marquess looked at him across the table.

"She is young," he said, "she is beautiful. Is there no man who loves
her who can win her from her mad ways?"

"Man!" cried Twemlow, raging, "every scoundrel and bumpkin in the shire
is mad after her, but she knows none who are not as bad as she--and
they tell me she laughs her wild, scornful laugh at each of them and
looks at him--standing with her hands in her breeches pockets and her
legs astride, and mocks as if she were some goddess instead of a mere
strapping, handsome vixen. 'There is not one of ye,' she says, 'not one
among ye who is man and big enough!' Such impudence was never yet in
woman born