et of any woman,
except for the trifling object! But at the feet of 'It is my husband!'
That would be a reversal of things.

Are not things reversed when the name Carinthia sounds in the thought of
him who laughed at the name not less angelically martial than Feltre's
adored silver trumpets of his Papal procession; sweeter of the new
morning for the husband of the woman; if he will but consent to the
worshipper's posture? Yes, and when Gower Woodseer's 'Malady of the
Wealthy,' as he terms the pivotting of the whole marching and wheeling
world upon the favoured of Fortune's habits and tastes, promises to quit
its fell clutch on him?

Another voice in the young nobleman cried: Pooh, dolt and dupe! and
surrounded her for half a league with reek of burnt flesh and shrieks of
a tortured child; giving her the aspect of a sister of the Parcw. But it
was not the ascendant' voice. It growled underneath, much like the deadly
beast at Carinthia's gown while she stood:--an image of her to dominate
the princeliest of men.

The princeliest must have won his title to the place before he can yield
other than complimentary station to a woman without violation of his
dignity; and vast wealth is not the title; worldly honours are not; deeds
only are the title. Fleetwood consented to tell himself that he had not
yet performed the deeds.

Therefore, for him to be dominated was to be obscured, eclipsed. A man
may outrun us; it is the fortune of war. Eclipsed behind the skirts of a
woman waving her upraised hands, with, 'Back, pray!'--no, that ignominy
is too horribly abominable! Be sure, the situation will certainly recur
in some form; will constantly recur. She will usurp the lead; she will
play the man.

Let matters go on as they are. We know our personal worth.

Arrived at this point in the perpetual round of the conflict Carinthia
had implanted, Fleetwood entered anew the ranks of the ordinary men of
wealth and a coronet, and he hugged himself. He enjoyed repose; knowing
it might be but a truce. Matters might go on as they were. Still, he
wished her away from those Wythans, residing at Esslemont. There she
might come eventually to a better knowledge of his personal worth:--'the
gold mine we carry in our bosoms till it is threshed out of us in sweat,'
that fellow Gower Woodseex says; adding, that we are the richer for not
exploring it. Philosophical cynicism is inconclusive. Fleetwood knew his
large capacities; he had proved them a