d to no such
name, was generally called the Embassy, there was a large garden, which,
though not much used by Sir Magnus or Lady Mountjoy, was regarded as a
valuable adjunct to the establishment. Here Florence betook herself for
exercise, and here Mr. Anderson, having put off the muddy marks of his
riding, found her one afternoon. It must be understood that no young man
was ever more in earnest than Mr. Anderson. He, too, looking through the
glass which had been prepared for him by Sir Magnus, thought that he saw
in the not very far distant future a Mrs. Hugh Anderson driving a pair
of gray ponies along the boulevard and he was much pleased with the
sight. It reached to the top of his ambition. Florence was to his eyes
really the sort of a girl whom a man in his position ought to marry. A
secretary of legation in a small foreign capital cannot do with a dowdy
wife, as may a clerk, for instance, in the Foreign Office. A secretary
of legation,--the second secretary, he told himself,--was bound, if he
married at all, to have a pretty and _distinguee_ wife. He knew all
about the intricacies which had fallen in a peculiar way into his own
hand. Mr. Blow might have married a South Sea Islander, and would have
been none the worse as regarded his official duties. Mr. Blow did not
want the services of a wife in discovering and reporting all the secrets
of the Belgium iron trade. There was no intricacy in that, no nicety.
There was much of what, in his lighter moments, Mr. Anderson called
"sweat." He did not pretend to much capacity for such duties; but in his
own peculiar walk he thought that he was great. But it was very
fatiguing, and he was sure that a wife was necessary to him. There were
little niceties which none but a wife could perform. He had a great
esteem for Sir Magnus. Sir Magnus was well thought of by all the court,
and by the foreign minister at Brussels. But Lady Mountjoy was really of
no use. The beginning and the end of it all with her was to show herself
in a carriage. It was incumbent upon him, Anderson, to marry.

He was loving enough, and very susceptible. He was too susceptible, and
he knew his own fault, and he was always on guard against it,--as
behooved a young man with such duties as his. He was always falling in
love, and then using his diplomatic skill in avoiding the consequences.
He had found out that though one girl had looked so well under waxlight
she did not endure the wear and tear of the day.