'My Ixionides!' he repeated, and did not scorn them so much as he rejoiced to be enlightened by the title. He craved the presence of the magician who dropped illumination with a single word; wholesomer to think of than the whole body of those Ixionides--not bad fellows, here and there, he reflected, tolerantly, half laughing at some of their clownish fun. Gower Woodseer and he had not quarrelled? No, they had merely parted at one of the crossways. The plebeian could teach that son of the, genuflexions, Lord Feltre, a lesson in manners. Woodseer was the better comrade and director of routes. Into the forest, up on the heights; and free, not locked; and not parroting day and night, but quick for all that the world has learnt and can tell, though two-thirds of it be composed of Ixionides: that way lies wisdom, and his index was cut that way. Arrived in town, he ran over the headings of his letters, in no degree anxious for a communication from Wales. There was none. Why none? She might as well have scrawled her announcement of an event pleasing to her, and, by the calculation, important to him, if not particularly interesting. The mother's wifeish lines would, perhaps, have been tested in a furnace. He smarted at the blank of any, of even two or three formal words. She sulked? 'I am not a fallen lamb!' he said. Evidently one had to be a shivering beast in trouble, to excite her to move a hand. Through so slight a fissure as this piece of discontent cracked in him, the crowd of his grievances with the woman rushed pell-mell, deluging young shoots of sweeter feelings. She sulked! If that woman could not get the command, he was to know her incapable of submission. After besmutting the name she had filched from him, she let him understand that there was no intention to repent. Possibly she meant war. In which case a man must fly, or stand assailed by the most intolerable of vulgar farces;--to be compared to a pelting of one on the stage. The time came for him to knock at doors and face his public. CHAPTER XXVIII BY CONCESSIONS TO MISTRESS GOSSIP A FURTHER INTRUSION IS AVERTED Livia welcomed him, with commiserating inquiry behind her languid eyelids. 'You have all the latest?' it said. He struck on the burning matter. 'You wish to know the part you have to play, ma'am.' 'Tell me, Russett.' 'You will contradict nothing.' Her eyebrows asked, 'It means?' 'You have authority from me to admit the facts.' 'They are facts?' she remarked. 'Women love teasing round certain facts, apparently; like the Law courts over their pet cases.' 'But, Russett, will you listen?' 'Has the luck been civil of late?' 'I think of something else at present. No, it has not.' 'Abrane?' 'Pray, attend to me. No, not Abrane.' 'I believe you've all been cleared out in my absence. St. Ombre?'