elf becassocked." He gave his head a
nod of finality.

"That, I fancy, is a question of temperament," said Maria Dolores. "Your
friend has the ascetic temperament. And it does not by any means follow
that he loves less because he resigns his love. What you call an inhuman
story seems to me a wonderfully noble one. I saw your friend this
morning, when he and you were walking together, and I said to myself,
'That man looks as if he had listened to the Counsels of Perfection. His
vocation shines through him.' I think you should reconcile yourself to
his accepting it."

"Well," said John, on the tone of a man ready to change the subject, "I
owe him at least one good mark. His account of his 'heart-state' led me
to examine my own, and I discovered that I am in love myself,--which is
a useful thing to know."

"Oh?" said Maria Dolores, with a little effect of reserve.

"Yes," said John, nothing daunted, "though unlike his, mine is an
unreciprocated flame, and unavowed."

"Ah?" said Maria Dolores, reserved indeed, but not without an undertone
of sympathy.

"Yes," said John, playing with fire, and finding therein a heady mixture
of fearfulness and joy. "The woman I love doesn't dream I love her, and
dreams still less of loving me,--for which blessed circumstance may
Heaven make me truly thankful."

The sentiment sounding unlikely, Maria Dolores raised doubtful eyes.
They shone into John's; his drank their light; and something violent
happened in his bosom.

"Oh--?" she said.

"Yes," said he, thinking what adorable little hands she had, as they lay
loosely clasped in her lap, thinking how warm they would be, and
fragrant; thinking too what fun it was, this playing with fire, how
perilous and exciting, and how egotistical he must seem to her, and how
nothing on earth should prevent him from continuing the play. "Yes," he
said, "it's a circumstance to be thankful for, because, like Winthorpe
himself, though for different reasons, I'm unable to contemplate
marriage." His voice sank sorrowfully, and he made a sorrowful movement.

"Oh--?" said Maria Dolores, her sympathy becoming more explicit.

"Winthorpe's too beastly puritanical--and I'm too beastly poor," said
he.

"Oh," she murmured. Her eyes softened; her sympathy deepened to
compassion.

"She must certainly put me down as the most complacent egotist in two
hemispheres, so to regale her with unsolicited information about
myself," thought John; "but surely it wo