which he had promised to give attention, and another person to see
who would welcome his coming quite as warmly, though by no means as
pleasantly, as Lily Dale. It was then just nine o'clock, and as he
had told Miss Demolines,--Madalina we may as well call her now,--that
he would be in Porchester Terrace by nine at the latest, it was
incumbent on him to make haste. He got into a cab, and bid the cabman
drive hard, and lighting a cigar, began to inquire of himself whether
it was well for him to hurry away from the presence of Lily Dale
to that of Madalina Demolines. He felt that he was half-ashamed of
what he was doing. Though he declared to himself over and over again
that he never had said a word, and never intended to say a word, to
Madalina, which all the world might not hear, yet he knew that he was
doing amiss. He was doing amiss, and half repented it, and yet he
was half proud of it. He was most anxious to be able to give himself
credit for his constancy to Lily Dale; to be able to feel that he
was steadfast in his passion; and yet he liked the idea of amusing
himself with his Bayswater romance, as he would call it, and was not
without something of conceit as he thought of the progress he had
made in it. "Love is one thing and amusement is another," he said to
himself as he puffed the cigar smoke out of his mouth; and in his
heart he was proud of his own capacity for enjoyment. He thought it
a fine thing, although at the same moment he knew it to be an evil
thing--this hurrying away from the young lady whom he really loved
to another as to whom he thought it very likely that he should be
called upon to pretend to love her. And he sang a little song as he
went, "If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be." That
was intended to apply to Lily, and was used as an excuse for his
fickleness in going to Miss Demolines. And he was, perhaps, too, a
little conceited as to his mission to the Continent. Lily had told
him that she was very glad that he was going; that she thought him
very right to go. The words had been pleasant to his ears, and Lily
had never looked prettier in his eyes than when she had spoken them.
Johnny, therefore, was rather proud of himself as he sat in the cab
smoking his cigar. He had, moreover, beaten his old enemy Sir Raffle
Buffle in another contest, and he felt that the world was smiling on
him;--that the world was smiling on him in spite of his cruel fate in
the matter of his real loves