nt the same--I believe I
can--allowances to women as to men; we are poor creatures, all of using
one sense: though I won't give Colney his footing; there's a better way
of reading us. I hold fast to Nature. No violation of Nature, my good
Colney! We can live the lives of noble creatures; and I say that
happiness was meant for us:--just as, when you sit down to your dinner,
you must do it cheerfully, and you make good blood: otherwise all's
wrong. There's the right answer to Colney! But when a woman like that
. . . . and marries a boy: well, twenty-one--not quite that: and an
innocent, a positive innocent--it may seem incredible, after a term of
school-life: it was a fact: I can hardly understand it myself when I look
back. Marries him! And then sets to work to persecute him, because he has
blood in his veins, because he worships beauty; because he seeks a real
marriage, a real mate. And, I say it! let the world take its own view, the
world is wrong! because he preferred a virtuous life to the kind of life
she would, she must--why, necessarily!--have driven him to, with a mummy's
grain of nature in his body. And I am made of flesh, I admit it.'

'Victor, dearest, her threat concerns only your living at Lakelands.'

'Pray, don't speak excitedly, my love,' he replied to the woman whose
tones had been subdued to scarce more than waver. 'You see how I meet it:
water off a duck's back, or Indian solar beams on the skin of a Hindoo! I
despise it hardly worth contempt;--But, come: our day was a good one.
Fenellan worked well. Old Colney was Colney Durance, of course. He did no
real mischief.'

'And you will not determine to enter Lakelands--not yet, dear?' said
Nataly.

'My own girl, leave it all to me.'

'But, Victor, I must, must know.'

'See the case. You have lots of courage. We can't withdraw. Her intention
is mischief. I believe the woman keeps herself alive for it: we've given
her another lease!--though it can only be for a very short time; Themison
is precise; Carling too. If we hold back--I have great faith in
Themison--the woman's breath on us is confirmed. We go down, then;
complete the furnishing, quite leisurely; accept--listen--accept one or
two invitations: impossible to refuse!--but they are accepted!--and we
defy her: a crazy old creature: imagines herself the wife of the
ex-Premier, widow of Prince Le Boo, engaged to the Chinese Ambassador, et
caetera. Leave the tussle with that woman to me. No, we don't