n himself at
that moment all the depths of profound and visionary passion, something
more than any man ever was conscious of who had an object and a hope.
The boy had neither; he neither hoped to marry her nor to get a hearing,
nor even to be taken seriously. Not even the remorse of a serious
passion rejected, the pain of self-reproach, the afterthought of pity
and tenderness would be his. He would get a laugh, nothing more. That
schoolboy, that brother of Lady Randolph's, who does not leave school
for a year! He knew what everybody would say. And yet he loved her
better than any one of them! MTutor startled, touched, went after him as
Jock turned away, and linking his arm in his, said something of the
kind which one would naturally say to a boy. "My dear fellow, you don't
mean to tell me----? Come, Jock! This is but your imagination that
beguiles you. The heart has not learned to speak so soon," MTutor said,
leaning upon Jock's shoulder. The boy turned upon him with a fiery glow
in his eyes.

"What were you saying about dancing?" he said. "They seem to be making
up that Lancers business again."

CHAPTER XLVII.

NEXT MORNING.

"You have news to tell me, Bice mia?"

There was a faint daylight in the streets, a blueness of dawn as the
ladies drove home.

"Have I? I have amused myself very much. I am not fatigued, no. I could
continue as long--as long as you please," Bice answered, who was sitting
up in her corner with more bloom than at the beginning of the evening,
her eyes shining, a creature incapable of fatigue. The Contessa lay back
in hers, with a languor which was rather adapted to her _role_ as a
chaperon than rendered necessary by the fatigue she felt. If she had not
been amused, she was triumphant, and this supplied a still more
intoxicating exhilaration than that of mere pleasure.

"Darling!" she said, in her most expressive tone. She added a few
moments after, "But Lord Montjoie! He has spoken? I read it in his
face----"

"Spoken? He said a great deal--some things that made me laugh, some
things that were not amusing. After all he is perhaps a little stupid,
but to dance there is no one like him!"

"And you go together--to perfection----"

"Ah!" said Bice, with a long breath of pleasure, "when the people began
to go away, when there was room! Certainly we deserted our other
partners, both he and I. Does that matter in London? He says No."

"Not, my angel, if you are to marry."

"That w