of girls you have loved
exactly what you think of them; and I had loved Lucy Latimer. She came,
an English rose, to console me for the loss of my French _fleur-de-lis_,
Clothilde. Or was it the other way about? One does get so mixed in these
things. At any rate, she did not marry me, her first love, but jilted me
most abominably for Latimer. So I shall heap five thousand pounds on her
head.

I have been unfortunate in my love affairs. I wonder why? Which reminds
me that I made the identical remark to Lucy Latimer a month or two ago.
(She is a plump, kind, motherly, unromantic little person now.) She had
the audacity to reply that I had never had any.

"_You_, Lucy Crooks, dare say such a thing!" I exclaimed indignantly.

She smiled. "Are there many more qualified than I to give the opinion?"

I remember that I rose and looked her sternly in the face.

"Lucy Crooks or Lucy Latimer," said I, "you are nothing more or less
than a common hussy."

Whereupon she laughed as if I had paid her a high compliment.

I maintain that I have been unfortunate in my love affairs. First, there
was an angel-faced widow, a contemporary of my mother's, whom I wooed in
Greek verses--and let me tell the young lover that it is much easier
to write your own doggerel and convert it into Greek than to put "To
Althea" into decent Anacreontics. I also took her to the Eton and Harrow
match, and talked to her of women's hats and the things she loved, and
neglected the cricket. But she would have none of me. In the flood tide
of my passion she married a scorbutic archdeacon of the name of Jugg.
Then there was a lady whose name for the life of me I can't remember. It
was something ending in "-ine." We quarrelled because we held divergent
views on Mr. Wilson Barrett. Then there was Clothilde, whose tragical
story I have already unfolded; Lucy Crooks, who threw me over for this
dear, amiable, wooden-headed stockjobbing Latimer; X, Y and Z--but here,
let me remark, I was the hunted--mammas spread nets for me which by the
grace of heaven and the ungraciousness of the damsels I escaped; and,
lastly, my incomparable Eleanor Faversham. Now, I thought, am I safe
in harbour? If ever a match could have been labelled "Pure heaven-made
goods, warranted not to shrink"--that was one. But for this rupture
there is an all-accounting reason. For the others there was none. I vow
I went on falling in love until I grew absolutely sick and tired of the
condition. Yo