with delicate moral health, and they--I say it with regret--must
be satisfied to be as respectably conducted as they are able.'

'I don't think you like Cecil,' said she, half-puzzled by his subtlety, but
hitting what she thought to be a 'blot.'

'It is difficult for me to tell his cousin what I should like to say in
answer to this remark.'

'Oh, have no embarrassment on that score. There are very few people less
trammelled by the ties of relationship than we are. Speak out, and if you
want to say anything particularly severe, have no fears of wounding my
susceptibilities.'

'And do you know, Lady Maude,' said he, in a voice of almost confidential
meaning, 'this was the very thing I was dreading? I had at one time a good
deal of Walpole's intimacy--I'll not call it friendship, for somehow there
were certain differences of temperament that separated us continually. We
could commonly agree upon the same things; we could never be one-minded
about the same people. In _my_ experiences, the world is by no means the
cold-hearted and selfish thing _he_ deems it; and yet I suppose, Lady
Maude, if there were to be a verdict given upon us both, nine out of ten
would have fixed on _me_ as the scoffer. Is not this so?'

The artfulness with which he had contrived to make himself and his
character a question of discussion achieved only a half-success, for she
only gave one of her most meaningless smiles as she said, 'I do not know; I
am not quite sure.'

'And yet I am more concerned to learn what _you_ would think on this score
than for the opinion of the whole world.'

Like a man who has taken a leap and found a deep 'drop' on the other side,
he came to a dead halt as he saw the cold and impassive look her features
had assumed. He would have given worlds to recall his speech and stand as
he did before it was uttered; for though she did not say one word, there
was that in her calm and composed expression which reproved all that
savoured of passionate appeal. A now-or-never sort of courage nerved him,
and he went on: 'I know all the presumption of a man like myself daring to
address such words to you, Lady Maude; but do you remember that though all
eyes but one saw only fog-bank in the horizon, Columbus maintained there
was land in the distance; and so say I, "He who would lay his fortunes
at your feet now sees high honours and great rewards awaiting him in the
future. It is with you to say whether these honours become the crowni