Demonstrably a fine specimen, a promising youngster.  The father was allowed to inspect him.  This was his heir:  a little fellow of smiles, features, puckered brows of inquiry; seeming a thing made already, and active on his own account.

‘Do people see likenesses?’ he asked.

‘Some do,’ said the mother.

‘You?’

She was constrained to give answer.  ’There is a likeness to my father, I have thought.’

There’s a dotage of idolatrous daughters, he could have retorted; and his gaze was a polite offer to humdrum reconcilement, if it pleased her.

She sent the child up the steps.

‘Do you come in, my lord?’

‘The house is yours, my lady.’

‘I cannot feel it mine.’

‘You are the mistress to invite or exclude.’

’I am ready to go in a few hours for a small income of money, for my child and me.’

‘—­Our child.’

‘Yes.’

‘It is our child.’

‘It is.’

‘Any sum you choose to name.  But where would you live?’

‘Near my brother I would live.’

’Three thousand a year for pin-money, or more, are at your disposal.  Stay here, I beg.  You have only to notify your wants.  And we’ll talk familiarly now, as we’re together.  Can I be of aid to your brother?  Tell me, pray.  I am disposed in every way to subscribe to your wishes.  Pray, speak, speak out.’

So the earl said.  He had to force his familiar tone against the rebuke of her grandeur of stature; and he was for inducing her to deliver her mind, that the mountain girl’s feebleness in speech might reinstate him.  She rejoined unhesitatingly:  ’My brother would not accept aid from you, my lord.  I will take no money more than for my needs.’

‘You spoke of certain sums down in Wales.’

‘I did then.’  Her voice was dead.

‘Ah!  You must be feeling the cold North-wind here.’

‘I do not.  You may feel the cold, my lord.  Will you enter the house?’

’ Do you invite me?’

‘The house is your own.’

‘Will the mistress of the house honour me so far?’

‘I am not the mistress of the house, my lord.’

‘You refuse, Carinthia?’

’I would keep from using those words.  I have no right to refuse the entry of the house to you.’

‘If I come in?’

‘I guard my rooms.’

She had been awake, then, to the thrusting and parrying behind masked language.

‘Good.  You are quite decided, I may suppose.’

’I will leave them when I have a little money, or when I know of how I may earn some.’

‘The Countess of Fleetwood earning a little money?’

‘I can put aside your title, my lord.’

’No, you can’t put it aside while the man with the title lives, not even if you’re running off in earnest, under a dozen Welsh names.  Why should you desire to do it?  The title entitles you to the command of half my possessions.  As to the house; don’t be alarmed; you will not have to guard your rooms.  The extraordinary wild animal you—­the impression may have been produced; I see, I see.  If I were in the house, I should not be rageing at your doors; and it is not my intention to enter the house.  That is, not by right of ownership.  You have my word.’