“Very bad,” said Brayder.

“How did you get hold of this?”

“Strolled into Belle’s dressing-room, waiting for her turned over her pincushion hap-hazard.  You know her trick.”

“By Jove!  I think that girl does it on purpose.  Thank heaven, I haven’t written her any letters for an age.  Is she going to him?”

“Not she!  But it’s odd, Mount!—­did you ever know her refuse money before?  She tore up the cheque in style, and presented me the fragments with two or three of the delicacies of language she learnt at your Academy.  I rather like to hear a woman swear.  It embellishes her!”

Mountfalcon took counsel of his parasite as to the end the letter could be made to serve.  Both conscientiously agreed that Richard’s behaviour to his wife was infamous, and that he at least deserved no mercy.  “But,” said his lordship, “it won’t do to show the letter.  At first she’ll be swearing it’s false, and then she’ll stick to him closer.  I know the sluts.”

“The rule of contrary,” said Brayder, carelessly.  “She must see the trahison with her eyes.  “They believe their eyes.  There’s your chance, Mount.  You step in:  you give her revenge and consolation—­two birds at one shot.  That’s what they like.”

“You’re an ass, Brayder,” the nobleman exclaimed.  “You’re an infernal blackguard.  You talk of this little woman as if she and other women were all of a piece.  I don’t see anything I gain by this confounded letter.  Her husband’s a brute—­that’s clear.”

“Will you leave it to me, Mount?”

“Be damned before I do!” muttered my lord.

“Thank you.  Now see how this will end:  You’re too soft, Mount.  You’ll be made a fool of.”

“I tell you, Brayder, there’s nothing to be done.  If I carry her off—­ I’ve been on the point of doing it every day—­what’ll come of that?  She’ll look—­I can’t stand her eyes—­I shall be a fool—­worse off with her than I am now.”

Mountfalcon yawned despondently.  “And what do you think?” he pursued.  “Isn’t it enough to make a fellow gnash his teeth?  She’s"...he mentioned something in an underbreath, and turned red as he said it.

“Hm!” Brayder put up his mouth and rapped the handle of his cane on his chin.  “That’s disagreeable, Mount.  You don’t exactly want to act in that character.  You haven’t got a diploma.  Bother!”

“Do you think I love her a bit less?” broke out my lord in a frenzy.  “By heaven!  I’d read to her by her bedside, and talk that infernal history to her, if it pleased her, all day and all night.”

“You’re evidently graduating for a midwife, Mount.”

The nobleman appeared silently to accept the imputation.

“What do they say in town?” he asked again.

Brayder said the sole question was, whether it was maid, wife, or widow.

“I’ll go to her this evening,” Mountfalcon resumed, after—­to judge by the cast of his face—­reflecting deeply.  “I’ll go to her this evening.  She shall know what infernal torment she makes me suffer.”