you ought to be," says Sartoris, with some anger. "All young men
should feel their hearts beat, and their pulses quicken, at the sight
of a pretty woman."

"My dear fellow," says Branscombe, severely, removing his glass from
his right to his left eye, as though to scan more carefully his
uncle's countenance, "there is something the matter with you this
morning, isn't there? You're not well, you know. You have taken
something very badly, and it has gone to your morals; they are all
wrong,--very unsound indeed. Have you carefully considered the nature
of the advice you are giving me? Why, if I were to let my heart beat
every time I meet all the pretty women I know, I should be in a
lunatic asylum in a month."

"Seriously, though, I wish you would give the matter some thought,"
says Lord Sartoris, earnestly: "you are twenty-eight,--old enough to
make a sensible choice."

Branscombe sighs.

"And I see nothing to prevent your doing so. You want a wife to look
after you,--a woman you could respect as well as love,--a thoughtful
beautiful woman, to make your home dearer to you than all the
amusements town life can afford. She would make you happy, and induce
you to look more carefully to your own interests, and----and----"

"You mean you would like me to marry Clarissa Peyton," says Dorian,
good-humoredly. "Well, it is a charming scheme, you know; but I don't
think it will come off. In the first place, Clarissa would not have
me, and in the next, I don't want to marry at all. A wife would bore
me to death; couldn't fancy a greater nuisance. I like women very
much, in fact, I may say, I am decidedly fond of a good many of them,
but to have one always looking after me (as you style it) and showing
up my pet delinquencies would drive me out of my mind. Don't look so
disgusted! I feel I'm a miserable sinner; but I really can't help it.
I expect there is something radically wrong with me."

"Do you mean to tell me"--with some natural indignation--"that up to
this you have never, during all your wanderings, both at home and
abroad, seen any woman you could sincerely admire?"

"Numbers, my dear Arthur,--any amount,--but not one I should care to
marry. You see, that makes such a difference. I remember once
before--last season--you spoke to me in this strain, and, simply to
oblige you, I thought I would make up my mind to try matrimony. So I
went in heavily, heart and soul, for Lady Fanny Hazlett. You have seen
Lady Fanny?"