reflected from the
polished floor, threw a sheen upon the ancient canvases, and burned
bright in the bosses of the frames. "Give me these," he wound up, "a
book or two, and a jug of the parroco's 'included wine'--my wilderness
is paradise enow."

Lady Blanchemain's eyes, as she listened, had become deep wells of
disappointment, then gushing fountains of reproach.

"Oh, you villain!" she groaned, when he had ended, shaking her pretty
fist. "So to have raised my expectations, and so to dash them!--Do you
_really_ mean," still clinging to a shred of hope, she pleaded, "really,
really mean that there's no--no actual woman?"

"I'm sorry," said John, "but I'm afraid I really, really do."

"And you're not--not really in love with any one?"

"No--not really," he said, with a mien that feigned contrition.

"But at your age--how old are you?" she broke off to demand.

"Somewhere between twenty-nine and thirty, I believe," he laughed.

"And in such a romantic environment, and not on account of a woman! It's
downright unnatural," she declared. "It's flat treason against the
kingly state of youth."

"I'm awfully sorry," said John. "Yet, after all, what's the good of
repining? Nothing could happen even if there were a woman."

Lady Blanchemain looked alarmed.

"Nothing could happen? What do you mean? You're not _married_? If you
are, it must be secretly, for you're put down as single in Burke."

"To the best of my knowledge," John reassured her, laughing, "Burke is
right. And I prayerfully trust he may never have occasion to revise his
statement."

"For mercy's sake," cried she, "don't tell me you're a woman-hater!"

"That's just the point," said he. "I'm an adorer of the sex."

"Well, then?" questioned she, at a loss. "How can you 'prayerfully' wish
to remain a bachelor? Besides, aren't you heir to a peerage? What of the
succession?"

"That's just the point," he perversely argued. "And you know there are
plenty of cousins."

"Just the point! just the point!" fretted Lady Blanchemain. "What's just
the point? Just the point that you aren't a woman-hater?--just the point
that you're heir to a peerage? You talk like Tom o' Bedlam."

"Well, you see," expounded John, unruffled, "as an adorer of the sex,
and heir to a peerage, I shouldn't want to marry a woman unless I could
support her in what they call a manner becoming her rank--and I
couldn't."

"Couldn't?" the lady scoffed. "I should like to know why not?"

"I