I shall be doing it till I've written a letter and paid a visit.' He took a meditative stride or two in the room, thinking without revulsion of the Countess Livia under a similitude of the bell of the plant henbane, and that his father had immunity from temptation because of the insensibility to beauty.

Out of which he passed to the writing of the letter to Lord Fleetwood, informing his lordship that he intended immediately to deliver a message to the Marchioness of Arpington from Admiral Baldwin Fakenham, in relation to the Countess of Fleetwood.
A duty was easily done by Gower when he had surmounted the task of conceiving his resolution to do it; and this task, involving an offence to the Lady Livia and intrusion of his name on a nobleman's recollection, ranked next in severity to the chopping off of his fingers by a man suspecting them of the bite of rabies.
An interview with Lady Arpington was granted him the following day.
She was a florid, aquiline, loud-voiced lady, evidently having no seat for her wonderments, after his account of the origin of his acquaintance with the admiral had quieted her suspicions.

The world had only to stand beside her, and it would hear what she had heard.

She rushed to the conclusion that Lord Fleetwood had married a person of no family.
'Really, really, that young man's freaks appear designed for the express purpose of heightening our amazement!' she exclaimed.

'He won't easily get beyond a wife in the east of London, at a shop; but there's no knowing.