old Dobbs. I'll go and
dine there again to-morrow, if you like."

CHAPTER XXV

Miss Madalina Demolines

[Illustration]

"I don't think you care two straws about her," Conway Dalrymple said
to his friend John Eames, two days after the dinner-party at Mrs
Dobbs Broughton's. The painter was at work in his studio, and the
private secretary from the Income-tax Office, who was no doubt
engaged on some special mission to the West End on the part of Sir
Raffle Buffle, was sitting in a lounging-chair and smoking a cigar.

"Because I don't go about with my stockings cross-gartered, and do
that kind of business?"

"Well, yes; because you don't do that kind of business, more or
less."

"It isn't in my line, my dear fellow. I know what you mean, very
well. I daresay, artistically speaking,--"

"Don't be an ass, Johnny."

"Well then, poetically, or romantically, if you like that better,--I
daresay that poetically or romantically I am deficient. I eat my
dinner very well, and I don't suppose I ought to do that; and, if
you'll believe me, I find myself laughing sometimes."

"I never knew a man who laughed so much. You're always laughing."

"And that, you think, is a bad sign?"

"I don't believe you really care about her. I think you are aware
that you have got a love-affair on hand, and that you hang on to it
rather persistently, having in some way come to a resolution that you
would be persistent. But there isn't much heart in it. I daresay
there was once."

"And that is your opinion?"

"You are just like some of those men who for years past have been
going to write a book on some new subject. The intention has been
sincere at first, and it never altogether dies away. But the would-be
author, though he still talks of his work, knows that it will never
be executed, and is very patient under the disappointment. All
enthusiasm about the thing is gone, but he is still known as the man
who is going to do it some day. You are the man who means to marry
Miss Dale in five, ten, or twenty years' time."

"Now, Conway, all that is thoroughly unfair. The would-be author
talks of his would-be book to everybody. I have never talked of Miss
Dale to any one but you, and one or two very old family friends. And
from year to year, and from month to month, I have done all that has
been in my power to win her. I don't think I shall ever succeed, and
yet I am as determined about it as I was when I first began it,--or
rather m