r the drive to London, Fleetwood had the
new name for the parasitic and sham vital troop at his ears.

'My Ixionides!' he repeated, and did not scorn them so much as he
rejoiced to be enlightened by the title. He craved the presence of the
magician who dropped illumination with a single word; wholesomer to think
of than the whole body of those Ixionides--not bad fellows, here and
there, he reflected, tolerantly, half laughing at some of their clownish
fun. Gower Woodseer and he had not quarrelled? No, they had merely parted
at one of the crossways. The plebeian could teach that son of the,
genuflexions, Lord Feltre, a lesson in manners. Woodseer was the better
comrade and director of routes. Into the forest, up on the heights; and
free, not locked; and not parroting day and night, but quick for all that
the world has learnt and can tell, though two-thirds of it be composed of
Ixionides: that way lies wisdom, and his index was cut that way.

Arrived in town, he ran over the headings of his letters, in no degree
anxious for a communication from Wales. There was none. Why none?

She might as well have scrawled her announcement of an event pleasing to
her, and, by the calculation, important to him, if not particularly
interesting. The mother's wifeish lines would, perhaps, have been tested
in a furnace. He smarted at the blank of any, of even two or three formal
words. She sulked? 'I am not a fallen lamb!' he said. Evidently one had
to be a shivering beast in trouble, to excite her to move a hand.

Through so slight a fissure as this piece of discontent cracked in him,
the crowd of his grievances with the woman rushed pell-mell, deluging
young shoots of sweeter feelings. She sulked! If that woman could not get
the command, he was to know her incapable of submission. After besmutting
the name she had filched from him, she let him understand that there was
no intention to repent. Possibly she meant war. In which case a man must
fly, or stand assailed by the most intolerable of vulgar farces;--to be
compared to a pelting of one on the stage.

The time came for him to knock at doors and face his public.

CHAPTER XXVIII

BY CONCESSIONS TO MISTRESS GOSSIP A FURTHER INTRUSION IS AVERTED

Livia welcomed him, with commiserating inquiry behind her languid
eyelids. 'You have all the latest?' it said.

He struck on the burning matter.

'You wish to know the part you have to play, ma'am.' 'Tell me, Russett.'

'You will