Still, it is not to be supposed that, though no very violent affection of the mind followed Lord Dewry's departure, Colonel Manners remained perfectly indifferent to what had occurred: on the contrary, it threw him into a fit of musing, if not of deep thought, and produced reflections which ended in resolutions, such as Colonel Manners might be expected to form. At the peer's wrath he laughed, and laughed at his menaces equally, secure in that calm, self-confident courage, which, not knowing what fear is, never dreams that it can be attributed to us; but at the uncomfort that his dispute with De Vaux's father might and would produce in the family he had come to visit, Colonel Manners did not laugh. He had assented on the preceding night, in words which, with him, amounted to a promise, to forget the baron's rudeness, and not to suffer it to abridge his stay; but, at present, new provocation had been given, and he had every reason to believe that his visit could not be prolonged to the period he had at first proposed, without material uncomfort to the family at Morley House, however strongly their kindness or their politeness might urge his stay. "Doubtless," thought Colonel Manners,--for we must put his private cogitations into the form of that necessary folly, a soliloquy,--"doubtless, the worthy peer will not go and expose himself so much to his own family, as to tell them what has occurred between us this morning; but equally, without doubt, he will contrive, by his demeanour towards me, to render the house, not only very unpleasant to me, but also to all its occupants; and, therefore, as this is a field where honour is neither to be gained nor supported, I must even beat a retreat. Yet De Vaux will, I know, feel very much mortified, if he fancies that his father is the cause of my departure; and therefore I suppose that the best plan be, to wait a day or two, and then, with the first letters that arrive,--and I must receive some soon, to plead important business, and set out. I suppose I must bear with this ill-tempered old gentleman's behaviour as best I may for eight and forty hours, though I am afraid it will be a struggle to avoid retorting a little of his bitterness upon himself."