ly looks, and a sad voice, and an unhappy gait. A man should
always be able to drink his wine and seem to enjoy it. If he can't,
he is so much less of a man than he would be otherwise,--not so much
more, as some people seem to think. Now get yourself dressed, my dear
fellow, and come down to dinner as though nothing had happened to
you."

As soon as the earl was gone John looked at his watch and saw that
it still wanted some forty minutes to dinner. Fifteen minutes would
suffice for him to dress, and therefore there was time sufficient
for him to seat himself in his arm-chair and think over it all. He
had for a moment been very angry when his friend had told him that
he could not sympathise with a lackadaisical lover. It was an
ill-natured word. He felt it to be so when he heard it, and so he
continued to think during the whole of the half-hour that he sat in
that chair. But it probably did him more good than any word that the
earl had ever spoken to him,--or any other word that he could have
used. "Lackadaisical! I'm not lackadaisical," he said to himself,
jumping up from his chair, and instantly sitting down again. "I
didn't say anything to him. I didn't tell him. Why did he come to
me?" And yet, though he endeavoured to abuse Lord De Guest in his
thoughts, he knew that Lord De Guest was right, and that he was
wrong. He knew that he had been lackadaisical, and was ashamed of
himself; and at once resolved that he would henceforth demean himself
as though no calamity had happened to him. "I've a good mind to take
him at his word, and drink wine till I'm drunk." Then he strove to
get up his courage by a song.

If she be not fair for me,
What care I how--

"But I do care. What stuff it is a man writing poetry and putting
into it such lies as that! Everybody knows that he did care,--that
is, if he wasn't a heartless beast."

But nevertheless, when the time came for him to go down into the
drawing-room he did make the effort which his friend had counselled,
and walked into the room with less of that hang-dog look than the
earl and Lady Julia had expected. They were both there, as was also
the squire, and Bell followed him in less than a minute.

"You haven't seen Crofts to-day, John, have you?" said the earl.

"No; I haven't been anywhere his way!"

"His way! His ways are every way, I take it. I wanted him to come and
dine, but he seemed to think it improper to eat two dinners in the
same house two days