Clarendon, who detested her as did so many, has damned her in a phrase: “_Nihil muliebris præter corpus gerens._” Clarendon did not credit her with a heart, under her gross, untidy female form, a woman’s heart as quick to respond to hate as to affection. Holles could have enlightened him. But, then, they never knew each other. The trivial, unconsidered good that we may do on our way through life is often a seed from which we may reap richly anon in the hour of our own need. This Holles was now discovering. She plied him with questions all through her noisy feeding, until she had drawn from him, not only the condition of his fortunes, but the reason of his return to England, the hopes he had nourished, and her own husband’s wrecking of those hopes. It put her in a rage. “God’s life!” she roared at her ducal lord and master. “You would ha’ turned him like a beggar from the door? Him--Randal!” His grace, the dauntless, honest George Monk, who all his life had trodden so firmly the path of rectitude, who feared no man, not even excepting the King whom he had made, lowered his proud, grave eyes before this termagant’s angry glance. He was a great soldier, as you know. Single-handed once he had faced a mutinous regiment in Whitehall, and quelled its insubordination by the fearless dominance of his personality. But he went in a dread of his boisterous vulgar duchess that was possibly greater than the dread in which any man had ever gone of him. “You see, my love, according to my lights....” he was beginning uneasily. “Your lights quotha!” she shrilled in scorn. “Mighty dim lights they be, George, if you can’t see to help a friend by them.” “I might help him to the gallows,” he expostulated. “Have patience now, and let me explain.” “I’ll need patience. God knows I shall! Well, man?” He smiled, gently, as if to show that he used gentleness from disinclination to assert his mastery. As best he could, seeing that he was subjected the while to a running fire of scornful interruptions, he made clear the situation as already he had made it clear to Holles. “Lord, George!” she said, when he had finished, and her great red face was blank. “You are growing old. You are not the man you was. You, a kingmaker! La!” She withered him with her scorn. “Where are the wits that helped King Charles Stuart back to his own? You wasn’t put off by the first obstacle in they days. What would ye be without me, I ask myself. It needs me to help ye see how ye can help a friend without bringing him under notice of them as might do him a hurt.” “If you can do that, my dear....” “If I can? I’d ha’ my brains fried for supper if I couldn’t. I would so--damme! For ’tis all they’d be good for. Is there no commands in your bestowing but commands here at home?” His eyebrows flickered up, as if something in his mind responded to her suggestion.