ghter all you have, and come to me.'

'But, Lady Camper, if I denude myself or curtail my income--a man at his
wife's discretion, I was saying a man at his wife's mercy...!'

General Ople was really forced, by his manly dignity, to make this
protest on its behalf. He did not see how he could have escaped doing
so; he was more an agent than a principal. 'My wife's mercy,' he said
again, but simply as a herald proclaiming superior orders.

Lady Camper's brows were wrathful. A deep blood-crimson overcame the
rouge, and gave her a terrible stormy look.

'The congress now ceases to sit, and the treaty is not concluded,' was
all she said.

She rose, bowed to him, 'Good morning, General,' and turned her back.

He sighed. He was a free man. But this could not be denied--whatever
the lady's age, she was a grand woman in her carriage, and when looking
angry, she had a queenlike aspect that raised her out of the reckoning
of time.

So now he knew there was a worse behind what he had previously known. He
was precipitate in calling it the worst. 'Now,' said he to himself, 'I
know the worst!'

No man should ever say it. Least of all, one who has entered into
relations with an eccentric lady.

CHAPTER VI

Politeness required that General Ople should not appear to rejoice in
his dismissal as a suitor, and should at least make some show of holding
himself at the beck of a reconsidering mind. He was guilty of running up
to London early next day, and remaining absent until nightfall; and he
did the same on the two following days. When he presented himself
at Lady Camper's lodge-gates, the astonishing intelligence, that her
ladyship had departed for the Continent and Egypt gave him qualms of
remorse, which assumed a more definite shape in something like awe of
her triumphant constitution. He forbore to mention her age, for he
was the most honourable of men, but a habit of tea-table talkativeness
impelled him to say and repeat an idea that had visited him, to the
effect, that Lady Camper was one of those wonderful women who are
comparable to brilliant generals, and defend themselves from the
siege of Time by various aggressive movements. Fearful of not being
understood, owing to the rarity of the occasions when the squat plain
squad of honest Saxon regulars at his command were called upon to
explain an idea, he re-cast the sentence. But, as it happened that the
regulars of his vocabulary were not numerous, and not accustom