Cashranger's request, sometimes took one of her cousins, a headstrong
young demon of six or seven, for an early walk, to which early walks
Valerie made no objection, preferring them to the drawing-rooms of No.
133, and liking them, you may guess, none the less after seeing somebody
she knew standing by the pond throwing in sticks for his retriever, and
Falkenstein had sat down with her under the bushes by the water, and
talked of all the things in heaven and earth; while Julius Adolphus ran
about and gobbled at the China geese, and wetted his silk stockings
unreproved. He made no love to her, not a bit; he talked of it
theoretically, but never practically. But he liked to talk to her, to
argue with her, to see her demonstrative pleasure in his society, to
watch her coming through the trees, and find the _longs yeux bleus_
gleam and darken at his approach. All this amused him, pleased him as
something original and out of the beaten track. She told him all she
thought and felt; she pleased him, and beguiled him from his darker
thoughts, and she began to reconcile him to human nature, which, with
Faria, he had learnt to class into "les tigres et les crocodiles a deux
pieds."

It was well he had this amusement, for it was his only one. He was going
to the bad, as we say; debts and entanglements imperceptibly gathered
round him, held him tight, and only in Valerie's lively society (lively,
for when with him she was as happy as a bird) could exercise his dark
spirit.

You remember the vow he made when the Silver Chimes rang in the New
Year? So did not he. We cannot be always Medes and Persians, madam, to
resist every temptation and keep unbroken every law, though you, sitting
in your cushioned chair, in unattacked tranquillity, can tell us easily
enough we should be. One night, when he was dining with Bevan, Tom
produced those two little ivory fiends, whose rattle is in the ear of
watchful deans and proctors as the singing of the rattlesnake, and whose
witchery is more wily and irresistible than the witchery of woman. No
beaux yeux, whether of the cassette or of one's first love, ever
subjugate a man so completely as the fascinations of play. Once yielded
to the charm, the Circe that clasps us will not let us go. Falkenstein,
though in much he had the strong will of his race, had no power to
resist the beguilements of his Omphale; he played again and again, and
five times out of seven lost.

"Well, Falkenstein," cried Go