but
the brave deserve the fair." "De l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et
toujours de l'audace." He was a man naturally of good heart in such
matters, who was not afraid of his brother-men, nor yet of women,
his sisters. But in this affair he knew very much persistence would
be required of him, and that even with such persistence he might
probably fail, unless he should find a more than ordinary constancy
in the girl. That the Duke could not eat him, indeed that nobody
could eat him as long as he carried himself as an honest man and a
gentleman, was to him an inward assurance on which he leaned much.
And yet he was conscious, almost with a feeling of shame, that in
Italy he had not spoken to the Duke about his daughter because he was
afraid lest the Duke might eat him. In such an affair he should have
been careful from the first to keep his own hands thoroughly clean.
Had it not been his duty as a gentleman to communicate with the
father, if not before he gained the girl's heart, at any rate as soon
as he knew he had done so? He had left Italy thinking that he would
certainly meet the Duchess and her daughter in London, and that then
he might go to the Duke as though this love of his had arisen from
the sweetness of those meetings in London. But all these ideas had
been dissipated by the great misfortune of the death of Lady Mary's
mother. From all this he was driven to acknowledge to himself that
his silence in Italy had been wrong, that he had been weak in
allowing himself to be guided by the counsel of the Duchess, and that
he had already armed the Duke with one strong argument against him.

He did not doubt but that Mrs. Finn would be opposed to him. Of
course he could not doubt but that all the world would now be opposed
to him,--except the girl herself. He would find no other friend so
generous, so romantic, so unworldly as the Duchess had been. It was
clear to him that Lady Mary had told the story of her engagement to
Mrs. Finn, and that Mrs. Finn had not as yet told it to the Duke.
From this he was justified in regarding Mrs. Finn as the girl's
friend. The request made was that he should at once do something
which Mrs. Finn was to suggest. He could hardly have been so
requested, and that in terms of such warm affection, had it been Mrs.
Finn's intention to ask him to desist altogether from his courtship.
This woman was regarded by Lady Mary as her mother's dearest friend.
It was therefore incumbent on him now t