mean he was; for I sat before him quite mute, at first, and
amazed at the clearness with which, before his conscience, he had
argued his case. He had persuaded himself that it was quite a simple
matter to throw over poor Joscelind and keep himself free for the
expiration of Lady Vandeleur's term of mourning. The deliberations of
an impulsive man sometimes land him in strange countries. Ambrose Tester
confided his plan to me as a tremendous secret. He professed to wish
immensely to know how it appeared to me, and whether my woman's
wit could n't discover for him some loophole big enough round, some
honorable way of not keeping faith. Yet at the same time he seemed
not to foresee that I should, of necessity, be simply horrified.
Disconcerted and perplexed (a little), that he was prepared to find me;
but if I had refused, as yet, to come to his assistance, he appeared to
suppose it was only because of the real difficulty of suggesting to him
that perfect pretext of which he was in want. He evidently counted upon
me, however, for some illuminating proposal, and I think he would have
liked to say to me, "You have always pretended to be a great friend of
mine,"--I hadn't; the pretension was all on his side,--"and now is
your chance to show it. Go to Joscelind and make her feel (women have
a hundred ways of doing that sort of thing), that through Vandeleur's
death the change in my situation is complete. If she is the girl I take
her for, she will know what to do in the premises."

I was not prepared to oblige him to this degree, and I lost no time
in telling him so, after my first surprise at seeing how definite his
purpose had become. His contention, after all, was very simple. He had
been in love with Lady Vandeleur for years, and was now more in love
with her than ever. There had been no appearance of her being, within a
calculable period, liberated by the death of her husband. This nobleman
was--he didn't say what just then (it was too soon)--but he was only
forty years old, and in such health and preservation as to make such a
contingency infinitely remote. Under these circumstances, Ambrose had
been driven, for the most worldly reasons--he was ashamed of them,
pah!--into an engagement with a girl he did n't love, and did n't
pretend to love. Suddenly the unexpected occurred; the woman he did
love had become accessible to him, and all the relations of things were
altered.

Why should n't he alter, too? Why should n't Mi