elf?'

He referred to the circumstance that there were tears upon his hand,
as he stood covering his eyes. 'A most ridiculous position this, to be
found out in!' was his next thought. And his next struck its root in a
little rising resentment against the cause of the tears.

'Yet I have gained a wonderful power over her, too, let her be as much
in earnest as she will!'

The reflection brought back the yielding of her face and form as she
had drooped under his gaze. Contemplating the reproduction, he seemed
to see, for the second time, in the appeal and in the confession of
weakness, a little fear.

'And she loves me. And so earnest a character must be very earnest in
that passion. She cannot choose for herself to be strong in this fancy,
wavering in that, and weak in the other. She must go through with her
nature, as I must go through with mine. If mine exacts its pains and
penalties all round, so must hers, I suppose.'

Pursuing the inquiry into his own nature, he thought, 'Now, if I married
her. If, outfacing the absurdity of the situation in correspondence with
M. R. F., I astonished M. R. F. to the utmost extent of his respected
powers, by informing him that I had married her, how would M. R. F.
reason with the legal mind? "You wouldn't marry for some money and some
station, because you were frightfully likely to become bored. Are you
less frightfully likely to become bored, marrying for no money and no
station? Are you sure of yourself?" Legal mind, in spite of forensic
protestations, must secretly admit, "Good reasoning on the part of M. R.
F. NOT sure of myself."'

In the very act of calling this tone of levity to his aid, he felt it to
be profligate and worthless, and asserted her against it.

'And yet,' said Eugene, 'I should like to see the fellow (Mortimer
excepted) who would undertake to tell me that this was not a real
sentiment on my part, won out of me by her beauty and her worth,
in spite of myself, and that I would not be true to her. I should
particularly like to see the fellow to-night who would tell me so, or
who would tell me anything that could be construed to her disadvantage;
for I am wearily out of sorts with one Wrayburn who cuts a sorry figure,
and I would far rather be out of sorts with somebody else. "Eugene,
Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad business." Ah! So go the Mortimer
Lightwood bells, and they sound melancholy to-night.'

Strolling on, he thought of something else to take himsel