nevitable end."

Lady Blanchemain laughed--a long, quiet laugh of amused contentment.

"Come in to luncheon," she said, putting her soft white hand upon his
arm, "and tell me all about it." And when they were established at her
table, a round table, gay with flowers, in a window at the far end of
the cool, terazza-paved, stucco-columned dining-room of the Hotel
Victoria, "Why do you call it a fool's paradise?" she asked.

"Well, you see, I'm in love," said he.

"You really are?" she doubted, with sprightliness, looking gleeful.

"All too really," he assured her, in a sinking voice.

"What an old witch I was!" mused she, with satisfaction. "Accept my
heart-felt felicitations." She beamed upon him.

"I should prefer your condolences," said he, in a voice from the depths.

"_Allons donc!_ Cheer up," laughed she, dallying with her bliss. "Men
have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love."

"I wonder," said John. "That is a statement, it seems to me, which would
be the better for some proving."

"At all events," said she, "you, for one, are not dead yet."

"No," admitted he; "though I could almost wish I was."

"Do you mean to say she has definitely rejected you?" she demanded,
alarmed.

"Fortune has spared her that necessity," said John. "I haven't asked
her, and I never shall. I haven't any money."

"Pooh! Is that all?" scoffed her ladyship, relieved. "You have
prospects."

"Remote ones--the remoter the better. I won't count on dead men's
shoes," said John.

"What is it your little fortune-teller at the Castle calls you?" asked
Lady Blanchemain, shrewdly, her dark old eyebrows up.

"She calls me _lucus a non lucendo_," was John's quick riposte; and the
lady laughed.

But in a moment she pulled a straight face. "I seriously counsel you to
have more faith," she said. "Go home and ask her to marry you; and if
she accepts,--you'll see. Money will come. Besides, your rank and your
prospective rank are assets which you err in not adding to the balance.
Go home, and propose to her."

"'Twould do no good," said John, dejectedly. "She regards me with
imperturbable indifference. I've made the fieriest avowals to her, and
she's never turned a hair."

Lady Blanchemain looked bewildered. "You've made avowals--?" she
falteringly echoed.

"I should rather think so," John affirmed. "Indirect ones, of course,
and I hope inoffensive, but fiery as live coals. In the third person,
you know. I've given her