";
or, "I say, old fellow, they're going to leave you out of that picnic at
Powerscourt. You'll find the Clancys rather cold at your next meeting."'

'And he would be right in his guess?'

'To the letter! Ay, and I shame to say that the young girl answered the
signal as promptly as the mother.'

'I hope it cured you of your passion?'

'I don't know that it did. When you begin to like a girl, and find that
she has regularly installed herself in a corner of your heart, there is
scarcely a thing she can do you'll not discover a good reason for; and
even when your ingenuity fails, go and pay a visit; there is some artful
witchery in that creation you have built up about her--for I heartily
believe most of us are merely clothing a sort of lay figure of loveliness
with attributes of our fancy--and the end of it is, we are about as wise
about our idols as the South Sea savages in their homage to the gods of
their own carving.'

'I don't think that!' said Gorman sternly. 'I could no more invent the
fascination that charms me than I could model a Venus or an Ariadne.'

'I see where your mistake lies. You do all this, and never know you do it.
Mind, I am only giving you Joe Atlee's theory all this time; for though I
believe in, I never invented it.'

'And who is Atlee?'

'A chum of mine--a clever dog enough--who, as he says himself, takes a very
low opinion of mankind, and in consequence finds this a capital world to
live in.'

'I should hate the fellow.'

'Not if you met him. He can be very companionable, though I never saw any
one take less trouble to please. He is popular almost everywhere.'

'I know I should hate him.'

'My cousin Nina thought the same, and declared, from the mere sight of his
photograph, that he was false and treacherous, and Heaven knows what else
besides; and now she'll not suffer a word in his disparagement. She began
exactly as you say you would, by a strong prejudice against him. I remember
the day he came down here--her manner towards him was more than distant;
and I told my sister Kate how it offended me; and Kate only smiled and
said, "Have a little patience, Dick."'

'And you took the advice? You did have a little patience?'

'Yes; and the end is they are firm friends. I'm not sure they don't
correspond.'

'Is there love in the case, then?'

'That is what I cannot make out. So far as I know either of them, there
is no trustfulness in their dispositions; each of them must see into