and told himself that he feared it would not do. She might perhaps
accept him, but if so, she would do it simply in order that she might
become Duchess of Omnium. She might, he thought, have accepted him
then, had she chosen. He had spoken plainly enough. But she had
laughed at him. He felt that if she loved him, there ought to have
been something of that feminine tremor, of that doubting, hesitating
half-avowal of which he had perhaps read in novels, and which his
own instincts taught him to desire. But there had been no tremor nor
hesitating. "No; my Lord, I do not," she had said when he asked her
to her face whether she liked him well enough to be his wife. "No; my
Lord, I do not." It was not the refusal conveyed in these words which
annoyed him. He did believe that if he were to press his suit with
the usual forms she would accept him. But it was that there should be
such a total absence of trepidation in her words and manner. Before
her he blushed and hesitated and felt that he did not know how to
express himself. If she would only have done the same, then there
would have been an equality. Then he could have seized her in his
arms and sworn that never, never, never would he care for any one but
her.

In truth he saw everything as it was only too truly. Though she
might choose to marry him if he pressed his request, she would never
subject herself to him as he would have the girl do whom he loved.
She was his superior, and in every word uttered between them showed
that it was so. But yet how beautiful she was;--how much more
beautiful than any other thing he had ever seen!

He sat on one of the high seats behind Sir Timothy Beeswax and Sir
Orlando Drought, listening, or pretending to listen, to the speeches
of three or four gentlemen respecting sugar, thinking of all this
till half-past seven;--and then he went to dine with the proud
consciousness of having done his duty. The forms and methods of the
House were, he flattered himself, soaking into him gradually,--as his
father had desired. The theory of legislation was sinking into his
mind. The welfare of the nation depended chiefly on sugar. But he
thought that, after all, his own welfare must depend on the
possession of Mab Grex.

CHAPTER XX

"Then He Will Come Again"

Lady Mabel, when her young lover left her, was for a time freed from
the necessity of thinking about him by her father. He had returned
from the Oaks in a very bad humour. Lord Grex