turn upon her and use
it? S'il me plait de le cacher, mon secret; pourquoi le donnerai je? Je
l'aime, mon pauvre pere, voyez-vous? I would rather live with that man
than with you fades intriguers of the world. I must have emotions--it
m'en donne. Il m'ecrit. Il ecrit tres-bien, voyez-vous--comme un
pirate--comme un Bohemien--comme un homme. But for this I would
have said to my mother--Ma mere! quittons ce lache mari, cette lache
societe--retournons a mon pere."

"The pirate would have wearied you like the rest," said Pen.

"Eh! Il me faut des emotions," said Blanche. Pen had never seen her or
known so much about her in all the years of their intimacy as he saw
and knew now: though he saw more than existed in reality. For this young
lady was not able to carry out any emotion to the full; but had a sham
enthusiasm, a sham hatred, a sham love, a sham taste, a sham grief, each
of which flared and shone very vehemently for an instant, but subsided
and gave place to the next sham emotion.

CHAPTER LXXV. A Chapter of Match-making

Upon the platform at Tunbridge, Pen fumed and fretted until the arrival
of the evening train to London, a full half-hour,--six hours it seemed
to him; but even this immense interval was passed, the train arrived,
the train sped on, the London lights came in view--a gentleman who
forgot his carpet-bag in the train rushed at a cab, and said to the man,
"Drive as hard as you can go to Jermyn Street." The cabman, although a
hansom-cabman, said Thank you for the gratuity which was put into his
hand, and Pen ran up the stairs of the hotel to Lady Rockminster's
apartments. Laura was alone in the drawing-room, reading, with a pale
face, by the lamp. The pale face looked up when Pen opened the door.
May we follow him? The great moments of life are but moments like the
others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the
eyes; a mere pressure of the hand may decide it; or of the lips, though
they cannot speak.

When Lady Rockminster, who has had her after-dinner nap, gets up and
goes into her sitting-room, we may enter with her ladyship.

"Upon my word, young people!" are the first words she says, and her
attendant makes wondering eyes over her shoulder. And well may she say
so; and well may the attendant cast wondering eyes; for the young people
are in an attitude; and Pen in such a position as every young lady who
reads this has heard tell of, or has seen, or hopes, or at any r