‘But do not shrug your head into your shoulders as if there were any possibility of concealing the thunderingly evident,’ said Lady Camper, electrifying him, what with her cordial squeeze, her kind eyes, and her singular language. ‘You have omitted the collar. Well? The collar is the fatal finishing touch in men’s dress; it would make Apollo look bourgeois.’ Her hand was in his: and watching the play of her features, a spark entered General Ople’s brain, causing him, in forgetfulness of collar and caricatures, to ejaculate, ‘Seventy? Did your ladyship say seventy? Utterly impossible! You trifle with me.’ ‘We will talk when we are free of this accompaniment of carriage-wheels, General,’ said Lady Camper. ‘I will beg permission to go and fetch Elizabeth, madam.’ ‘Rightly thought of. Fetch her in my carriage. And, by the way, Mrs. Baerens was my old music-mistress, and is, I think, one year older than I. She can tell you on which side of seventy I am.’ ‘I shall not require to ask, my lady,’ he said, sighing. ‘Then we will send the carriage for Elizabeth, and have it out together at once. I am impatient; yes, General, impatient: for what?--forgiveness.’ ‘Of me, my lady?’ The General breathed profoundly. ‘Of whom else? Do you know what it is?-I don’t think you do. You English have the smallest experience of humanity. I mean this: to strike so hard that, in the end, you soften your heart to the victim. Well, that is my weakness. And we of our blood put no restraint on the blows we strike when we think them wanted, so we are always overdoing it.’ General Ople assisted Lady Camper to alight from the carriage, which was forthwith despatched for Elizabeth. He prepared to listen to her with a disconnected smile of acute attentiveness. She had changed. She spoke of money. Ten thousand pounds must be settled on his daughter. ‘And now,’ said she, ‘you will remember that you are wanting a collar.’ He acquiesced. He craved permission to retire for ten minutes. ‘Simplest of men! what will cover you?’ she exclaimed, and peremptorily bidding him sit down in the drawing-room, she took one of the famous pair of pistols in her hand, and said, ‘If I put myself in a similar position, and make myself decodletee too, will that satisfy you? You see these murderous weapons. Well, I am a coward. I dread fire-arms. They are laid there to impose on the world, and I believe they do. They have imposed on you. Now, you would never think of pretending to a moral quality you do not possess. But, silly, simple man that you are! You can give yourself the airs of wealth, buy horses to conceal your nakedness, and when you are taken upon the standard of your apparent income, you would rather seem to be beating a miserly retreat than behave frankly and honestly. I have a little overstated it, but I am near the mark.’ ‘Your ladyship wanting courage!’ cried the General.