d wan, fond lover?" he says gayly, but with so kindly an
intonation that even the most pugnacious could not take umbrage at it.

Now, Mr. Kelly's knowledge on all matters is so clear and precise that
Ronayne does not dream of deceiving him in this matter.

"Of course you will laugh at me," he says, "but somehow I don't mind
_your_ ridicule much. It means only this, that I have just found out
that she cares nothing at all for me."

"_She_, being Mrs. Bohun? Well, my dear lad, if an elderly gentleman's
experience is of any use to you, you may have it cheap. _I_ believe she
cares a great deal for you. Lookers-on see most of the game, and I would
back you against Rossmoyne any day."

"You are a very good fellow," says Ulic Ronayne, "the best I know; but I
understand you. You are only saying that to console me."

"I am not, in faith: I say it because I think it."

"I wish I could think it."

"Try. 'If at first you don't succeed,' you know follow out the
inestimable Watts's advice, and 'try again.' There's nothing like it: it
gets to be quite a game in the long run. I thank my stars," laughing, "I
have never been a slave to the 'pathetic fallacy' called love; yet it
has its good points, I suppose."

"It hasn't," says Ronayne, gloomily.

"You terrify me," says Mr. Kelly, "because I feel positive my day is yet
to come, and with all this misery before me I feel suicidal. Don't my
dear fellow! don't look like that! Give her up; go and fall in love with
some little girl of your own age or even younger."

The "even" is offensive, but Ulic is too far gone in melancholy to
perceive it.

"It is too late for that kind of advice," he says: "I want her, and her
only. I don't know how to describe it, but----"

"There are chords," quotes his friend gravely.

"Just so," says the miserable Ronayne, quite as gravely; which so upsets
the gravity of his companion that it is with difficulty he conceals his
ill-timed mirth.

"What is that mutilated article in your hand?" he asks at length, when
he has conquered his muscles.

"This--eh!--oh, her card, I suppose," says Ronayne, viciously. Yet even
as he speaks he smooths out the crumpled card, and regards it with a
dismal tenderness as being in part _her_.

"You're engaged to her for the next," says Mr. Kelly, looking over his
shoulder: "what an unfortunate thing! If I were you," mournfully, "I
should go home. Get ill. Do _something_."

"And so let her think I'm wasting in desp