bad role. We Anglo-Saxons have no sentimental
education. Our puritanism makes us half the time timid at courtship
and love."

The gentlemen rode a little on with slackened rein. Westboro's
eyeglass cord was almost motionless as he stared out between his
horse's ears down the lane.

"Perhaps, after all," he fetched it out slowly, "there's something in
what you say."

Whether or not there was any truth in Bulstrode's commonplace remark,
it lingered in his host's mind all day. It gave him, for the first
time, a link to follow--an idea--and the Duke, entirely unused to
analysis, accustomed to act if not on impulse, certainly according to
his will and pleasure without concession, harked back in a groping,
touching fashion like an awkward boy looking for a lost treasure,
upsetting, as he went, old haunts, turning over things for years not
brought to the light of day. And it took him all the afternoon and a
good part of the evening to reach the place where he thought he had
lost originally his joy. Unlike the happier boy, he could not seize
his bliss once recovered, and stow it away; it was only remembrance
that brought him back, and with a tightening heart as he realized once
more the form and quality of his lost happiness--there he must leave it
and see it fade again into the past.

Jimmy gave his host a chance to follow his absorbed reflections. He
effaced himself, and behind a book whose lightness of touch made him
agreeably forget the heavier hand of current and daily events, he sat
in his dressing-room reading "The Vicar of Wakefield."

When Westboro' came in to him Jimmy looked up and quoted aloud: "When
lovely woman stoops to folly and finds at length that men betray...."

"Oh, they console themselves quickly," Westboro' finished. "Don't
fancy anything else, my dear fellow, they console themselves."

"They may pretend to do so."

"They succeed."

Westboro' took the little book from his friend's hand and shut it
firmly as if afraid that the rest of the verse might slip out and
refute him.

"Bulstrode, she consoles herself, she is perfectly happy."

"How are you then so sure?"

"Oh, I hear of her in Paris." The Duke's features contracted. "She's
contriving to pass her time--to pass her time."

Bulstrode leaned over towards his friend and, for Westboro' sat
opposite him, he put his hand on the Duke's knee.

"You must certainly go to her."

Westboro' stroked his moustache before he answered: