uish her with the dominating patience Charlotte had found
too much for her: women cannot stand against it.

To be patient in contention with women, however, one must have a
continuous and an exclusive occupation; and the tax it lays on us
conduces usually to impatience with men. My lord did not directly
connect Aminta's chillness and Morsfield's impudence; yet the sensation
roused by his Aminta participated in the desire to punish Morsfield
speedily. Without wishing for a duel, he was moved by the social
sanction it had to consider whether green youths and women might not
think a grey head had delayed it too long. The practice of the duel
begot the peculiar animal logic of the nobler savage, which tends to
magnify an offence in the ratio of our vanity, and hunger for a blood
that is not demanded by the appetite. Moreover, a waning practice, in
disfavour with the new generation, will be commended to the conservative
barbarian, as partaking of the wisdom of his fathers. Further, too, we
may have grown slothful, fallen to moodiness, done excess of service to
Omphale, our tyrant lady of the glow and the chill; and then undoubtedly
the duel braces.

He left Aminta for London, submissive to the terms of intimacy dictated
by her demeanour, his unacknowledged seniority rendering their harshness
less hard to endure. She had not gratified him with a display of her
person in the glitter of the Ormont jewels; and since he was, under
common conditions, a speechless man, his ineptitude for amorous
remonstrances precipitated him upon deeds, that he might offer
additional proofs of his esteem and the assurance of her established
position as his countess. He proposed to engage Lady Charlotte in a
conflict severer than the foregoing, until he brought her to pay the
ceremonial visit to her sister-in-law. The count of time for this final
trial of his masterfulness he calculated at a week. It would be an
occupation, miserable occupation though it was. He hailed the prospect
of chastising Morsfield, for a proof that his tussels with women,
prolonged study of their tricks, manoeuvrings and outwittings of them,
had not emasculated him.

Aminta willingly promised to write from day to day. Her senses had his
absence insured to them by her anticipation of the task. She did not
conceive it would be so ponderous a task. What to write to him when
nothing occurred! Nothing did occur, unless the arrival of Mr. Weyburn
was to be named an event. She