that he was welcome. She would have changed the subject had Claudius
proposed to her to do any of the things he seemed to think she was ready
to do, and Claudius knew it instinctively. He was bold with women, but
he never transgressed, and his manner allowed him to say many things
that would have sounded oddly enough in Mr. Barker's mouth. He impressed
women with a sense of confidence that he might be trusted to honour them
and respect them under any circumstances.

The Countess was accustomed to have men at her feet, but she had never
treated a man unjustly, and if they had sometimes lost their heads it
was not her fault. She was a loyal woman, and had loved her husband as
much as most good wives, though with an honest determination to love him
better; for she was young when they married, and she thought her love
stronger than it really was. She had mourned him sincerely, but the
wound had healed, and being a brave woman, with no morbid sensitiveness
of herself, she had contemplated the possibility of marrying again,
without, however, connecting the idea with any individual. She had liked
Claudius from the first, and there had been something semi-romantic
about their meeting in the Schloss at Heidelberg. On nearer acquaintance
she liked him better, though she knew that he admired her, and by the
time a fortnight had passed Claudius had become an institution. They
read together and they walked together, and once she took him with her
in the black phaeton, whereupon Barker remarked that it was "an immense
thing on wheels."

Mr. Barker, seeing that his companion was safe for the present, left
Baden for a time and lighted on his friend the Duke at Como, where the
latter had discovered some attractive metal. The Duke remarked that Como
would be a very decent place if the scenery wasn't so confoundedly bad.
"I could beat it on my own place in the west," he added.