_my_ part, the attachment has been as constant."

"Indeed, sir!" said Hankes, sorely puzzled what to make of this
declaration.

"I know," said Dunn, returning rapidly to the theme, "that nothing
will seem less credible to the world at large than a man of _my_ stamp
marrying for love! The habit is to represent us as a sort of human
monster, a creature of wily, money-getting faculties, shrewd,
over-reaching, and successful. They won't give us feelings, Hankes. They
won't let us understand the ties of affection and the charms of a home.
Well," said he, after a long pause, "there probably never lived a man
more mistaken, more misconceived by the world than myself."

Hankes heaved a heavy sigh; it was, he felt, the safest thing he could
do, for he did not dare to trust himself with a single word. The sigh,
however, was a most profound one, and, plainly as words, declared the
compassionate contempt he entertained for a world so short-sighted and
so meanly minded.

"After all," resumed Dunn, "it is the penalty every man must pay for
eminence. The poor little nibblers at the rind of fortune satisfy their
unsuccess when they say, 'Look at him with all his money!'"

Another and deeper sigh here broke from Hankes, who was really losing
all clew to the speaker's reflections.

"I'm certain, Hankes, you have heard observations of this kind five
hundred times."

"Ay, have I, sir," answered he, in hurried confusion,--"five thousand!"

"Well, and what was your reply, sir? How did you meet such remarks?"
said Dunn, sternly.

"Put them down, sir,--put them down at once; that is, I acknowledged
that there was a sort of fair ground; I agreed in thinking that,
everything considered, and looking to what we saw every day around us in
life--and Heaven knows it is a strange world, and the more one sees of
it the less he knows--"

"I 'm curious to hear," said Dunn, with a stern fixedness of manner, "in
what quarter you heard these comments on my character."

Hankes trembled from head to foot. He was in the witness-box, and felt
that one syllable might place him in the dock.

"You never heard one word of the kind in your life, sir, and you _know_
it," said Dunn, with a savage energy of tone that made the other sick
with fear. "If ever there was a man whose daily life refuted such a
calumny, it was myself."

Dunn's emotions were powerful, and he walked the room from end to end
with long and determined strides. Suddenly halting at la