incompatible with his
"freedom," and is only "enchained" after much persistent hunting down by
the female, who makes the most of the conventions of civilisation for
her own protection and profit. He was able, therefore, at the age of
forty-two to look round him and say: "I have successfully
escaped--hitherto," and to feel that what he said was true. But now he
was no longer poor. He was an eligible man.

He was also less happy than he had been. He had lived at Chartcote for
some interminable weeks! He had found it tolerable, only because he was
well enough off to be always going away from it. But now he had again
met May, free like himself, and if possible more attractive than she had
been eight years ago!

He had met her and had found her at the zenith of womanhood; without
losing her youth, she had acquired maturer grace and self-possession.
Had there been any room for improvement in himself he too would have
matured! The wealth he had acquired was sufficient. And now the question
was: whether with all his masculine longing to preserve his freedom he
would be able to escape successfully again? This was why he was giving a
lingering glance in the mirror, where his external personality was, as
it were, painted with an exactness that no artist could command.

Should this blond man with the beard and the stiff hair, below which lay
a splendid brain, should he escape again?

Boreham stared hard at his own image. He repeated the momentous
question, firmly but inaudibly, and then went away without answering it.
Time would show--that very day might show!

Mrs. Greenleafe Potten had already arrived. Now Mrs. Greenleafe Potten
was a cousin of Boreham's maternal aunt. She lived in rude though
luxurious widowhood about a quarter of a mile from Chartcote, and she
was naturally the person to whom Boreham applied whenever he wanted a
lady to head his table. Besides, Mrs. Potten was a very old friend of
Lady Dashwood's. Mrs. Potten was a little senior to Lady Dashwood, but
in many ways appeared to be her junior. Mrs. Potten, too, retained her
youthful interest in men. Lady Dashwood's long stay in Oxford had
brought with it a new interest to Mrs. Potten's life. It had enabled her
to call at King's College and claim acquaintance with the Warden. Mrs.
Potten admired the Warden with the sentiment of early girlhood. Now Mrs.
Potten was accredited with the possession of great wealth, of which she
spent as little as possible. She pract