 below. That thought came as a fruit,
not as a reflection.
    But if ever two offending young gentlemen, nephews of a long-suffering
uncle, were circumvented, undermined, and struck to earth, with one blow, here
was the instance. This was accomplished by Lord Romfrey's resolution to make the
lady he had learnt to esteem his countess: and more, it fixed to him for life
one whom he could not bear to think of losing: and still more, it might be; but
what more was unwritten on his tablets.
    Rosamund failed to recollect that Everard Romfrey never took a step without
seeing a combination of objects to be gained by it.
 

                                  Chapter XLIV

The Nephews of the Earl, and Another Exhibition of the Two Passions in Beauchamp

It was now the season when London is as a lighted tower to her provinces, and,
among other gentlemen hurried thither by attraction, Captain Baskelett arrived.
Although not a personage in the House of Commons, he was a vote; and if he never
committed himself to the perils of a speech, he made himself heard. His was the
part of chorus, which he performed with a fairly close imitation of the original
cries of periods before parliaments were instituted, thus representing a stage
in the human development besides the borough of Bevisham. He arrived in the best
of moods for the emission of high-pitched vowel-sounds; otherwise in the worst
of tempers. His uncle had notified an addition of his income to him at Romfrey,
together with commands that he should quit the castle instantly: and there did
that woman, Mistress Culling, do the honours to Nevil Beauchamp's French party.
He assured Lord Palmet of his positive knowledge of the fact, incredible as the
sanction of such immoral proceedings by the Earl of Romfrey must appear to that
young nobleman. Additions to income are of course acceptable, but in the form of
a palpable stipulation for silence, they neither awaken gratitude nor effect
their purpose. Quite the contrary; they prick the moral mind to sit in judgement
on the donor. It means, she fears me! Cecil confidently thought and said of the
intriguing woman who managed his patron.
    The town-house was open to him. Lord Romfrey was at Steynham. Cecil could
not suppose that he was falling into a pit in entering it. He happened to be the
favourite of the old housekeeper, who liked him for his haughtiness, which was
to her thinking the sign of real English nobility, and perhaps it is the popular
sign, and a tonic to the people. She raised lamentations over the shame of
