And now through the dense crowd they passed along,--all surprised and amazed at the courteous attentions of the old Judge, whom but a few moments before they had seen almost convulsed with passion. “She almost had won the game, Haire,” said the Chief Baron, as, having handed the ladies to their carriage, he went in search of his own. “But I have mated her. My sarcasm has never given me one victory with that woman,” said he, sternly. “I have never conquered her except by courtesy.” “Why did she come down to court at all?” blurted out Haire; “it was positively indecent.” “The Spanish women go to bull-fights, but I never heard that they stepped down into, the arena. She has great courage,--very great courage.” “Who was the handsome woman with her?” “Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sewell. Now, that is what I call beauty, Haire. There is the element which is denied to us men,--to subdue without effort, to conquer without conflict.” “Your granddaughter is handsomer, to my thinking.” “They are like each other,--strangely like. They have the same dimpling of the cheek before they smile, and her laugh has the same ring as Lucy's.” Haire muttered something, not very intelligibly, indeed, but certainly not sounding like assent. “Lady Lendrick had asked me to take these Sewells in at the Priory, and I refused her. Perhaps I 'd have been less peremptory had I seen this beauty. Yes, sir! There is a form of loveliness--this woman has it--as distinctly an influence as intellectual superiority, or great rank, or great riches. To deny its power you must live out of the world, and reject all the ordinances of society.” “Coquettes, I suppose, have their followers; but I don't think you or I need be of the number.” “You speak with your accustomed acuteness, Haire; but coquetry is the exercise of many gifts, beauty is the display of one. I can parry off the one; I cannot help feeling the burning rays of the other. Come, come, don't sulk; I am not going to undervalue your favorite Lucy. They have promised to dine with me on Sunday; you must meet them.” “Dine with you!--dine with you, after what you said today in open court!” “That I could invite them, and they accept my invitation, is the best reply to those who would, in their malevolence, misinterpret whatever may have fallen from me. The wound of a sharp arrow is never very painful till some inexpert bungler endeavors to withdraw the weapon. It is then that agony becomes excruciating, and peril imminent.” “I suppose I am the bungler, then?” “Heaven forbid I should say so! but as I have often warned you, Haire, your turn for sarcasm is too strong for even your good sense. When you have shotted your gun with a good joke, you will make a bull's eye of your best friend.” “By George, then, I don't know myself, that's all; and I could as easily imagine myself a rich man as a witty one.”