It was at this moment that Patty found herself free, Sir Giles having been wheeled away to his own rooms to escape the agitating encounter of so many strangers. She walked towards them with the heroic confidence of a Joan of Arc. Probably nothing but the habits of her previous life, her custom of facing unruly men in various stages of difficulty, dissatisfied customers, and those of too convivial a turn, drunkards, whom she had to master by sheer coolness and strength of mind, could have armed her for such an extraordinary emergency. She knew most of the men by sight, but had hitherto looked at them from a distance as beings unapproachable, not likely ever to come within touch of herself or her life; and they all looked towards her, more or less severely,--some with surprise, some with concealed amusement, some with the sternest disapproval. So many men of might and dignity, personages in the county, not one among them sympathetic; and one small young woman, in a place the very external features of which were unknown to her, where every individual was an enemy, yet which she meant to take possession of and conquer by her bow and her spear, turning out every dissident! The gentlemen stood and stared, rather in astonishment than in curiosity, as she advanced alone, her long veil hanging behind her, her crape sweeping the carpet. They did not make way for her, which was scarcely so much from incivility as from surprise, but stood staring, blocking up the door of a room which Patty saw must be the first stronghold to be taken, from the mere fact of the group that stood before it. She came up quite close to them without saying a word, holding her head high. And then she raised her high, rather sharp voice:-- “Will you please to make room for me to pass? I want to join my husband,” she said. And then there was a start as simultaneous as the stare had been. Patty’s voice gave the gentlemen of the county a shock as if a cannon had been fired into the midst of them. It was a challenge and an accusation in one. To accuse men of their class of a breach of civility is worse than firing a gun among them. They separated quickly with a sense of shame. “I beg your pardon” came from at least two voices. It would be difficult to explain what they thought they could have done to resist the intruder: but they were horrified by the suggestion of interference--as if they had anything to do with it! so that in fact Patty entered triumphantly through a lane formed by two lines of men dividing to make way for her. A princess could not have done more.