do know her so well,--what course should you adopt, were you in
my place?

THE CAVALIER: (Smirking more knowingly than ever,--or seeming to)!!!

BELLEW: Preposterous! Quite absurd!--and just what I might have
expected. Carry her off, indeed! No no, we are not living in your bad,
old, glorious days when a maid's "No" was generally taken to mean
"Yes"--or when a lover might swing his reluctant mistress up to his
saddle-bow, and ride off with her, leaving the world far behind. To-day
it is all changed,--sadly changed. Your age was a wild age, a violent
age, but in some respects, perhaps, a rather glorious age. Your advice
is singularly characteristic, and, of course, quite impossible,
alas!--Carry her off, indeed!

Hereupon, Bellew sighed, and turning away, lighted his pipe, which had
gone out, and buried himself in the newspaper.

CHAPTER XXI

_Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, and the third finger of the left
hand_

So Bellew took up the paper. The house was very quiet, for Small Porges
was deep in the vexatious rules of the Multiplication Table, and
something he called "Jogafrey," Anthea was out, as usual, and Miss
Priscilla was busied with her numerous household duties. Thus the
brooding silence was unbroken save for the occasional murmur of a voice,
the jingle of the housekeeping keys, and the quick, light tap, tap, of
Miss Priscilla's stick.

Therefore, Bellew read the paper, and let it be understood that he
regarded the daily news-sheet as the last resource of the utterly bored.

Now presently, as he glanced over the paper with a negative interest his
eye was attracted by a long paragraph beginning:

At St. George's, Hanover Square, by the Right Reverend the Bishop
of----, Silvia Cecile Marchmont, to His Grace the Duke of Ryde,
K.G., K.C.B.

Below followed a full, true, and particular account of the ceremony
which, it seemed, had been graced by Royalty. George Bellew read it half
way through, and--yawned,--positively, and actually, yawned, and
thereafter, laughed.

"And so, I have been in Arcadia--only three weeks! I have known Anthea
only twenty-one days! A ridiculously short time, as time goes,--in any
other place but Arcadia,--and yet sufficient to lay for ever,
the--er--Haunting Spectre of the Might Have Been. Lord! what a
preposterous ass I was! Baxter was quite right,--utterly, and completely
right! Now, let us suppose that this paragraph had read: 'To-day, at St.
George's, Hanover Squa