t. You are like an
angel to me. If I could write poetry, I should write about you. If ever
I build castles in the air and think what I might have been if things
had gone well with me, I try to fancy then that I might have had you
for a wife. That is not wicked. That is not a crime. Can you be angry
with me because, having got to know you as I do, I think you better,
nicer, jollier, more beautiful than any one else? Have you never really
loved a friend?"

"I love my husband with all my heart,--oh, better than all the world."

Jack did not quite understand this. His angel was an angel. He was sure
of that. And he wished her to be still an angel. But he could not
understand how any angel could passionately love Lord George
Germain,--especially this angel who had been so cruelly treated by him.
Had she loved him better than all the world when he walked her out of
Mrs. Jones' drawing-room, reprimanding her before all the guests for
her conduct in dancing the Kappa-kappa? But this was a matter not open
to argument. "I may still be your friend?" he said.

"I think you had better not come again."

"Do not say that, Lady George. If I have done wrong, forgive me. I
think you must admit that I could hardly help myself."

"Not help yourself!"

"Did I not tell you that I wanted you to know the whole truth? How
could I make you understand about Miss Mildmay without telling it all?
Say that you will forgive me."

"Say that it is not so, and then I will forgive you."

"No. It is so, and it must be so. It will remain so always, but yet you
will surely forgive me, if I never speak of it again. You will forgive
me and understand me, and when hereafter you see me as a middle-aged
man about town, you will partly know why it is so. Oh dear; I forgot to
tell you. We had another old friend of yours at Rudham,--a very
particular friend." Of course she had forgiven him and now she was
thankful to him for his sudden breach of the subject; but she was not
herself strong enough immediately to turn to another matter. "Who do
you think was there?"

"How can I tell?"

"The Baroness."

"No?"

"As large as life."

"Baroness Banmann at Mr. De Baron's."

"Yes;--Baroness Banmann. Aunt Julia had contrived to get permission to
bring her, and the joke was that she did us all out of our money. She
got a five-pound note from me."

"What a goose you were."

"And ten from Lord Brotherton! I think that was the greatest triumph.
She was down