on,--but to him, by showing
him how wrong he was in trifling with this girl's feelings.

And so they started for their walk. He of course would have avoided
it had it been possible. When men in such matters have two strings to
their bow, much inconvenience is felt when the two become entangled.
Silverbridge no doubt had come over to Killancodlem for the sake of
making love to Mabel Grex, and instead of doing so he had made love
to Isabel Boncassen. And during the watches of the night, and as he
had dressed himself in the morning, and while Mrs. Jones had been
whispering to him her little bulletin as to the state of the young
lady's health, he had not repented himself of the change. Mabel had
been, he thought, so little gracious to him that he would have given
up that notion earlier, but for his indiscreet declaration to his
father. On the other hand, making love to Isabel Boncassen seemed
to him to possess some divine afflatus of joy which made it of all
imaginable occupations the sweetest and most charming. She had
admitted of no embrace. Indeed he had attempted none, unless that
touch of the hand might be so called, from which she had immediately
withdrawn. Her conduct had been such that he had felt it to be
incumbent on him, at the very moment, to justify the touch by a
declaration of love. Then she had told him that she would not promise
to love him in return. And yet it had been so sweet, so heavenly
sweet!

During the morning he had almost forgotten Mabel. When Mrs. Jones
told him that Isabel would keep her room, he longed to ask for
leave to go and make some inquiry at the door. She would not play
lawn-tennis with him. Well;--he did not now care much for that. After
what he had said to her she must at any rate give him some answer.
She had been so gracious to him that his hopes ran very high. It
never occurred to him to fancy that she might be gracious to him
because he was heir to the Dukedom of Omnium. She herself was so
infinitely superior to all wealth, to all rank, to all sublunary
arrangements, conventions, and considerations, that there was no room
for confidence of that nature. But he was confident because her smile
had been sweet, and her eyes bright,--and because he was conscious,
though unconsciously conscious, of something of the sympathy of love.

But he had to go to the waterfall with Mabel. Lady Mabel was always
dressed perfectly,--having great gifts of her own in that direction.
There was a fr