will for the future dispense with her company? Or do you believe that
people in this world associate only with those they love and esteem?"

"I would not have one for my intimate friend whom I did not love and
esteem."

"But, Harry, suppose that no one loved and esteemed you; that you had no
home down at Clavering with a father that admires you and a mother that
worships you; no sisters that think you to be almost perfect, no
comrades with whom you can work with mutual regard and emulation, no
self-confidence, no high hopes of your own, no power of choosing
companions whom you can esteem and love--suppose with you it was Sophie
Gordeloup or none--how would it be with you then?"

His heart must have been made of stone if this had not melted it. He got
up, and coming round to her, stood over her. "Julia," he said, "it is
not so with you."

"But it is so with Julia," she said. "That is the truth. How am I better
than she, and why should I not associate with her?"

"Better than she! As women you are poles asunder."

"But as dragons," she said, smiling, "we come together."

"Do you mean that you have no one to love you?"

"Yes, Harry; that is just what I do mean. I have none to love me. In
playing my cards, I have won my stakes in money and rank, but have lost
the amount ten times told in affection, friendship, and that general
unpronounced esteem which creates the fellowship of men and women in the
world. I have a carriage and horses, and am driven about with grand
servants; and people, as they see me, whisper and say that is Lady
Ongar, whom nobody knows. I can see it in their eyes till I fancy that I
can hear their words."

"But it is all false."

"What is false? It is not false that I have deserved this. I have done
that which has made me a fitting companion for such a one as Sophie
Gordeloup, though I have not done that which perhaps these people
think."

He paused again before he spoke, still standing near her on the rug.
"Lady Ongar--" he said.

"Nay, Harry; not Lady Ongar when we are together thus. Let me feel that
I have one friend who can dare to call me by my name--from whose mouth I
shall be pleased to hear my name. You need not fear that I shall think
that it means too much. I will not take it as meaning what it used to
mean." He did not know how to go on with his speech, or in truth what to
say to her. Florence Burton was still present to his mind, and from
minute to minute he told himself that