"No, they don't all know of it. Lord Dollamore does, and so does that good-looking man with the beard, Colonel Alsager, and perhaps Captain Bligh. But I doubt if one of the others ever heard of it: these things blow over, and are so soon forgotten. And it would be very awkward to have the story revived here. Why, the county families who have called, and are inclined to be civil--I heard you boasting of it the other day--would drop you a like red-hot coal. The officers quartered in the barracks would cut you dead; the out-going regiment would tell the story to the in-coming regiment; you would never get a soul over here to dinner or to stop with you, and you would be bored to death. That's not a pleasant lookout, is it?" He sat doggedly silent until she spoke again. "But that is not nearly all. I have it in my power to injure your position as well as your reputation; to compel you to change that pretty velvet lounging-coat for a suit of hodden gray, that meerschaum-bowl for a lump of oakum, this very cheery room for--But there's no need to dilate on the difference: you'll do what I ask?" "And suppose I were to deny all your story." "Ah, now you're descending to mere childishness. How could you deny what all the men I have mentioned know thoroughly well? They are content to forget all about it now, and to receive you as a reclaimed man; but if they were asked as men of honour whether or not there had been such a scandal, of course they would tell the truth. Come, you'll do what I ask?" She had won the day; there was no doubt about that. Any bystander, had one been there, could have told it in a moment; could have read it in his sullen dogged look of defeat, in her bright airy glance of triumph. "You'll do what I ask?" "You have me in your hands," he said in a low voice. "I knew you would see it in the right light," she said, "You see, after all, it's very little to give up; the flirtation is only just commencing, so that even you, with your keen susceptibility, cannot be hard hit yet. And you have such a very nice wife, and it will be altogether so much better for you now you are _rangé_, as they say. You'll have to go to the village-church regularly when you're down here, and to become a magistrate, and to go through all sorts of other respectabilities with which this style of thing would not fit at all. Now, goodbye;" and she turned to go. "Stay!" he called out; "when may I expect a repetition of this threat for some new demand?" "That rests entirely with yourself. As I have said from the first, I did not seek you; you intruded yourself into my circle. I like my present mode of life--for the present--and don't want to change it. Keep clear of me, and we shall never clash. Again, goodbye." She made a pretty little bow and, undulating all over, left the room as quietly as she had entered it. When she had closed the door Mitford rose from his chair with a long sigh of relief, loosened his cravat, and shook his fist.