ooked at her she was gazing out
over the flowers on the lawn.

"My life did not matter," she said. "Let us not talk of that."

I might have answered, but I dared not speak for fear of saying what
was in my heart. And while I trembled with the repression of it, she was
changed. She turned her face towards me and smiled a little.

"If you had obeyed me you would not have been so ill," she said.

"Then I am glad that I did not obey you."

"Your cousin, the irrepressible Mr. Temple, says I am a tyrant. Come
now, do you think me a tyrant?"

"He has also said other things of you."

"What other things?"

I blushed at my own boldness.

"He said that if he were not in love with Antoinette, he would be in
love with you."

"A very safe compliment," said the Vicomtesse. "Indeed, it sounds too
cautious for Mr. Temple. You must have tampered with it, Mr. Ritchie,"
she flashed. "Mr. Temple is a boy. He needs discipline. He will have too
easy a time with Antoinette."

"He is not the sort of man you should marry," I said, and sat amazed at
it.

She looked at me strangely.

"No, he is not," she answered. "He is more or less the sort of man I
have been thrown with all my life. They toil not, neither do they spin.
I know you will not misunderstand me, for I am very fond of him. Mr.
Temple is honest, fearless, lovable, and of good instincts. One cannot
say as much for the rest of his type. They go through life fighting,
gaming, horse-racing, riding to hounds,--I have often thought that it
was no wonder our privileges came to an end. So many of us were steeped
in selfishness and vice, were a burden on the world. The early nobles,
with all their crimes, were men who carved their way. Of such were the
lords of the Marches. We toyed with politics, with simplicity, we wasted
the land, we played cards as our coaches passed through famine-stricken
villages. The reckoning came. Our punishment was not given into the
hands of the bourgeois, who would have dealt justly, but to the scum,
the canaille, the demons of the earth. Had our King, had our nobility,
been men with the old fire, they would not have stood it. They were worn
out with centuries of catering to themselves. Give me a man who will
shape his life and live it with all his strength. I am tired of sham
and pretence, of cynical wit, of mocking at the real things of life, of
pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy. Give me a man whose existence means
something."

Was she thinking