"Natty," suggested one of his hearers; but he waved the word aside.

"--of such lightness of touch, as I might describe it,--I say, it has
often occurred to me to wonder how such a nation could so far mistake
its destiny and the designs of Providence (inscrutable though they be)
as to embark on a career of foreign conquest which can only--ah--
have one end."

"Come to grief," put in Lady Bateson, a dowager in a crimson cap with
military feathers. She was supposed to cherish a hopeless passion for
Endymion. Also, she was supposed to be acting as Dorothea's chaperon
tonight; but having with little exertion found partners for a niece of
her own, a sprightly young lady on a visit from Bath, felt that she
deserved to relax her mind in a little intellectual talk. Endymion
accepted her remark with magnificent tolerance.

"Precisely." He inclined towards her. "You have hit it precisely."

Dorothea stole a glance at her brother. Military and hunt uniforms were
_de rigueur_ at these Axcester balls, and a Major of Yeomanry more
splendid than Endymion Westcote it would have been hard to find in
England. He stood with a hand negligently resting on his left hip--
the word hip,--his right foot advanced, the toe of his polished boot
tapping the floor. His smile, indulgent as it hovered over Lady
Bateson, descended to this protruded leg and became complacent, as it
had a right to be.

"Well, I've always said so from the start," Lady Bateson announced,
"and now I'm sure of it. I don't mind Frenchmen as Frenchmen; but what
I say is, let them stick to their fal-de-rals."