But Sir Tom did nothing but laugh. "I've seen a few passages of arms," he said. "By Jove, you don't know what war is till you see two ---- at it tooth and nail. Two--what, Lucy? Oh, I mean fine ladies; they have no mercy. Her Grace will set her claws into the fair countess. And as for the Forno-Populo herself----" "Dear Tom" said Lucy with gentle gravity, "Is it nice to speak of ladies so? If any one called me the Randolph, I should be, oh, so----" "You," cried her husband with a hot and angry colour rising to his very hair, and then he perceived that he was betraying himself, and paused. "You see, my love, that's different," he said. "Madame di Forno-Populo is--an old stager: and you are very young, and nobody ever thought of you but with--reverence, my dear. Yes, that's the word, Lucy, though you are only a bit of a girl." "Tom," said Lucy with great dignity, "I have you to take care of me, and I have never been known in the world. But, dear, if this poor lady has no one--and I suppose she is a widow, is she not, Tom?" He had been listening to her almost with emotion--with a half-abashed look, full of fondness and admiration. But at this question he drew back a little, with a sort of stagger, and burst into a wild fit of laughter. When he came to himself wiping his eyes, he was, there could be no doubt, ashamed of himself. "I beg you ten thousand pardons," he cried. "Lucy, my darling! Yes, yes--I suppose she is a widow, as you say." Lucy looked at him while he laughed, with profound gravity, without the slightest inclination to join in his merriment, which is a thing which has a very uncomfortable effect. She waited till he was done, with a mixture of wonder and disapproval in her seriousness, looking at his laughter as if at some phenomenon which she did not understand. "I have often heard gentlemen," she said, "talk about widows as if it were a sort of laughable name, and as if they might make their jokes as they pleased. But I did not think you would have done it, Tom. I should feel all the other way," said Lucy. "I should think I could never do enough to make it up, if that were possible, and to make them forget. Is it their fault that they are left desolate, that a man should laugh?" She turned away from her husband with a soft superiority of innocence and true feeling which struck him dumb. He begged her pardon in the most abject way; and then he left her for a moment quietly, and had his laugh out. But he was ashamed of himself all the same. "I wonder what she will say when she sees the Forno-Populo," he said to himself. CHAPTER XVII. FOREWARNED.