ign engagement altogether, though
the announcement in the newspapers was spoken of by Sir Roderick and Lady
Echester and others.

'How do you like that?' he remarked to me, seeing her twirled away by one
of the young Rubreys.

'She seems to like it, sir,' I replied.

'Like it!' said he. 'In my day you wouldn't have caught me letting the
bloom be taken off the girl I cared for by a parcel o' scampish young
dogs. Right in their arms! Look at her build. She's strong; she's
healthy; she goes round like a tower. If you want a girl to look like a
princess!'

His eulogies were not undeserved. But she danced as lightly and happily
with Mr. Fred Rubrey as with Harry Richmond. I congratulated myself on
her lack of sentiment. Later, when in London, where Mlle. Jenny
Chassediane challenged me to perilous sarabandes, I wished that Janet had
ever so small a grain of sentiment, for a preservative to me. Ottilia
glowed high and distant; she sent me no message; her image did not step
between me and disorder. The whole structure of my idea of my superior
nature seemed to be crumbling to fragments; and beginning to feel in
despair that I was wretchedly like other men, I lost by degrees the sense
of my hold on her. It struck me that my worst fears of the effect
produced on the princess's mind by that last scene in the lake-palace
must be true, and I abandoned hope. Temple thought she tried me too
cruelly. Under these circumstances I became less and less resolutely
disposed to renew the forlorn conflict with my father concerning his
prodigal way of living. 'Let it last as long as I have a penny to support
him!' I exclaimed. He said that Dettermain and Newson were now urging on
his case with the utmost despatch in order to keep pace with him, but
that the case relied for its life on his preserving a great appearance.
He handed me his division of our twin cheque-books, telling me he
preferred to depend on his son for supplies, and I was in the mood to
think this a partial security.

'But you can take what there is,' I said.

'On the contrary, I will accept nothing but minor sums--so to speak, the
fractional shillings; though I confess I am always bewildered by silver,'
said he.

I questioned him upon his means of carrying on his expenditure. His
answer was to refer to the pavement of the city of London. By paving here
and there he had, he informed me, made a concrete for the wheels to roll
on. He calculated that he now had credit for