My lord sketched the scene he had just quitted to a lady who had stopped
her carriage. She was the still beautiful Mrs. Amy May, wife of the
famous fighting captain. Her hair was radiant in a shady street; her
eyelids tenderly toned round the almond enclosure of blue pebbles, bright
as if shining from the seawash. The lips of the fair woman could be seen
to say that they were sweet when, laughing or discoursing, they gave
sight of teeth proudly her own, rivalling the regularity of the grin of
dentistry. A Venus of nature was melting into a Venus of art, and there
was a decorous concealment of the contest and the anguish in the process,
for which Lord Ormont liked her well enough to wink benevolently at her
efforts to cheat the world at various issues, and maintain her duel with
Time. The world deserved that she should beat it, even if she had been
all deception.

She let the subject of Mr. Morsfield pass without remark from her, until
the exhaustion of open-air topics hinted an end of their conversation,
and she said--

'We shall learn next week what to think if the civilians. I have heard
Mr. Morsfield tell that he is 'de premiere force.' Be on your guard.
You are to know that I never forget a service, and you did me one once.'
'You have reason . . . ?' said the earl.

'If anybody is the dragon to the treasure he covets he is a spadassin who
won't hesitate at provocations. Adieu.'

Lord Ormont's eye had been on Mr. Morsfield. He had seen what Mrs.
Pagnell counselled her niece to let, him see. He thanked Mr. Morsfield
for a tonic that made him young with anticipations of bracing; and he set
his head to work upon an advance half-way to meet the gentleman, and