"_Fiat experimentum in corpore vili_," he said. "Your classical reading might have taught you that much, at all events. You want practice in mounting, decidedly; but I beg that you will select for your next lesson a fitter subject than Miss Vavasour." Knowles was ready enough of retort as a rule; but this time, before he could collect himself sufficiently to find an answer, Wyverne was in the saddle, And lightly they rode away. The animosity was not equally allotted, for Alan engrossed far the bitterest share of it; but thenceforward both the cousins might fear the very worst from an enemy capable of much stratagem, recoiling from no baseness, whose hatred, if it were only for the coldness of its malignity, might not safely be defied. For some days after Knowles's departure, everything went on pleasantly at Dene; and nothing occurred worthy of note, unless it were a slight passage-of-arms between Bertie Grenvil and Mr. Brabazon. The latter was so rarely taken at fault, that it deserves to be recorded. The financier was perfectly aware of the flirtation in progress between his wife and the Cherub; but he never disquieted himself about such trifles; and it was simply his "aggravating" instinct which impelled him one day, after dinner, to select the topic which he guessed would be most disagreeable to both. A certain Guardsman had just come to great grief in money matters, and had been forced to betake himself in haste to some continental Adullam. He was a favourite cousin of Maud's, a great friend of Grenvil's, and in the same battalion. It was supposed that the Cherub was to a certain extent involved in his comrade's embarrassments, having backed the latter almost to the extent of his own small credit. On the present occasion, Mr. Brabazon was good enough to volunteer a detailed account of the unlucky spendthrift's difficulties, which he professed to have received in a letter that morning, adding his own strictures and comments thereon. No one interrupted him, though Lady Mildred had the tact to give the departing signal before he had quite finished. Mr. Brabazon felt that he had the best of the position, and determined to follow up his triumph. When the men were left alone, his plump, smooth face became more superciliously sanctimonious, till he looked like Tartufe intensified. "There is one subject I would not allude to," he said, "till _they_ had left us. I have heard it hinted that Captain Pulteney's ruin was hastened by his disgraceful profligacy. It is said that he lavished thousands on a notorious person living under his name in a villa in St. John's Wood. Mr. Grenvil perhaps knows if my information is correct?" Brabazon wished his words unsaid as Bertie's bright eyes fastened on his face, glittering with malicious mirth.