ney or somebody says, that the greater our successes, the greater the
slaves we become.--But we must have an aim, my friend, and success must
be the aim of any aim!--Yes, and, says Colney, you are to rejoice in the
disappointing miss, which saved you from being damned by your bullet on
the centre.--You're dead against Nature, old Colney.--That is to carry
the flag of Liberty.--By clipping a limb!

Victor overcame the Pessimist in his own royal cranium-Court. He
entertained a pronounced dissension with bachelors pretending to
independence. It could not be argued publicly, and the more the
pity:--for a slight encouragement, he would have done it: his
outlook over the waves of bachelors and (by present conditions mostly
constrained) spinsters--and another outlook, midnight upon Phlegethon to
the thoughts of men, made him deem it urgent. And it helped the plea in
his own excuse, as Colney pointed out to the son of Nature. That, he
had to admit, was true. He charged it upon Mrs. Burman, for twisting the
most unselfish and noblest of his thoughts; and he promised himself
it was to cease on the instant when the circumstance, which Nature was
remiss in not bringing about to-day or to-morrow, had come to pass. He
could see his Nataly's pained endurance beneath her habitual submission.
Her effort was a poor one, to conceal her dread of the day of the
gathering at Lakelands.

On the Sunday previous to the day, Dr. Themison accompanied the
amateurs by rail to Wrensham, to hear 'trial of the acoustics' of the
Concert-hall. They were a goodly company; and there was fun in the
railway-carriage over Colney's description of Fashionable London's vast
octopus Malady-monster, who was letting the doctor fly to the tether of
its longest filament for an hour, plying suckers on him the while. He
had the look, to general perception, of a man but half-escaped: and as
when the notes of things taken by the vision in front are being set down
upon tablets in the head behind. Victor observed his look at Nataly. The
look was like a door aswing, revealing in concealing. She was not or did
not appear struck by it; perhaps, if observant, she took it for a busy
professional gentleman's holiday reckoning of the hours before the
return train to his harness, and his arrangements for catching it. She
was, as she could be on a day of trial, her enchanting majestic self
again--defying suspicions. She was his true mate for breasting a world
honoured in upliftin