Well, she was in love with him. I suppose it takes a little time," said
the Duchess, sighing.

"Why was she in love with him?" said Meredith, impatiently. "As to the
Moffatt engagement, naturally, she was kept in the dark?"

"At first," said the Duchess, hesitating. "And when she knew, poor dear,
it was too late!"

"Too late for what?"

"Well, when one falls in love one doesn't all at once shake it off
because the man deceives you."

"One _should_," said Meredith, with energy. "Men are not worth all that
women spend upon them."

"Oh, that's true!" cried the Duchess--"so dreadfully true! But what's
the good of preaching? We shall go on spending it to the end of time."

"Well, at any rate, don't choose the dummies and the frauds."

"Ah, there you talk sense," said the Duchess. "And if only we had the
French system in England! If only one could say to Julie: 'Now look
here, _there's_ your husband! It's all settled--down to plate and
linen--and you've _got_ to marry him!' how happy we should all be."

Dr. Meredith stared.

"You have the man in your eye," he said.

The Duchess hesitated.

"Suppose you come a little walk with me in the wood," she said, at last,
gathering up her white skirts.

Meredith obeyed her. They were away for half an hour, and when they
returned the journalist's face, flushed and furrowed with thought, was
not very easy to read.

Nor was his temper in good condition. It required a climb to the very
top of Monte Crocione to send him back, more or less appeased, a
consenting player in the Duchess's game. For if there are men who are
flirts and egotists--who ought to be, yet never are, divined by the
sensible woman at a glance--so also there are men too well equipped for
this wicked world, too good, too well born, too desirable.

It was in this somewhat flinty and carping mood that Meredith prepared
himself for the advent of Jacob Delafield.

* * * * *

But when Delafield appeared, Meredith's secret antagonisms were soon
dissipated. There was certainly no challenging air of prosperity about
the young man.

At first sight, indeed, he was his old cheerful self, always ready for a
walk or a row, on easy terms at once with the Italian servants or
boatmen. But soon other facts emerged--stealthily, as it were, from the
concealment in which a strong man was trying to keep them.

"That young man's youth is over," said Meredith, abruptly, to the
Duchess one ev