ontrary," Bertram answered, urbane as ever, with charming
politeness of tone and manner: "I'm a born conservative. I'm tenacious
to an almost foolishly sentimental degree of every old custom or
practice or idea; unless, indeed, it's either wicked or silly--like most
of your English ones."

He raised his hat, and made as if he would pass on. Now, nothing annoys
an angry savage or an uneducated person so much as the perfect coolness
of a civilised and cultivated man when he himself is boiling with
indignation. He feels its superiority an affront on his barbarism. So,
with a vulgar oath, Sir Lionel flung himself point-blank in the way.
"Damn it all, no you won't, sir!" he cried. "I'll soon put a stop to all
that, I can tell you. You shan't go on one step without committing an
assault upon me." And he drew himself up, four-square, as if for battle.

"Oh, just as you like," Bertram answered coolly, never losing his
temper. "I'm not afraid of taboos: I've seen too many of them." And he
gazed at the fat little angry man with a gentle expression of mingled
contempt and amusement.

For a minute, Frida thought they were really going to fight, and drew
back in horror to await the contest. But such a warlike notion never
entered the man of peace's head. He took a step backward for a second
and calmly surveyed his antagonist with a critical scrutiny. Sir Lionel
was short and stout and puffy; Bertram Ingledew was tall and strong
and well-knit and athletic. After an instant's pause, during which the
doughty baronet stood doubling his fat fists and glaring silent wrath
at his lither opponent, Bertram made a sudden dart forward, seized the
little stout man bodily in his stalwart arms, and lifting him like a
baby, in spite of kicks and struggles, carried him a hundred paces
to one side of the path, where he laid him down gingerly without
unnecessary violence on a bed of young bracken. Then he returned quite
calmly, as if nothing had happened, to Frida's side, with that quiet
little smile on his unruffled countenance.

Frida had not quite approved of all this small episode, for she too
believed in the righteousness of taboo, like most other Englishwomen,
and devoutly accepted the common priestly doctrine, that the earth is
the landlord's and the fulness thereof; but still, being a woman, and
therefore an admirer of physical strength in men, she could not help
applauding to herself the masterly way in which her squire had carried
his a