ne
of those jolly old houses in Kensington Square. Historic, romantic,
poetic Kensington Square, where burning Sappho loved and sang, and
Thackeray wrote the What-do-you-call-'ems. Who fears to speak of
Ninety-eight? That's her number. Ninety-eight, Kensington Square, W.
And whenever I have occasion to run up to town, mind, I 'm not to think
of going to an hotel, I 'm to drive straight to Ninety-eight, and it
will be her joy to take me in. So it sometimes pays to be charming,
after all."

"I see," said Anthony.

"You see? The deuce you do. What do you see?" asked Adrian, opening
his blue eyes wide, and peering about, as one who would fain see too.

"You patter of Miss Sandus," said Anthony.

Adrian came to a standstill, and raised his hands towards heaven.

"Now I call upon the choirs of blessed Cherubim and Seraphim," he
exclaimed. "I call upon them to suspend their singing for an instant,
and to witness this. He sees that I patter of Miss Sandus. What
perspicuity. And he just a mortal man, like anybody--nay, by all
accounts, just a bluff country squire. Ah, what a noble understanding.
Well, then, my dear Hawkshaw, since there's no concealing anything from
you,--_fine mouche, allez_!--I own up. I patter of Miss Sandus."

"Do you happen to know where Madame Torrebianca comes from?" Anthony
asked.

"Oho!" cried Adrian. "It's Madame Torrebianca that _you 've_ been
raving about. Ah, yes. Oh, I concede at once that Madame Torrebianca
is very nice too. None readier than I to do her homage. But for fun
and devilment give me Peebles. Give me old ladies, or give me little
girls. You 're welcome to the betwixts and the betweens. Old ladies,
who have passed the age of folly, or little girls, who have n't reached
it. But women in the prime of their womanhood are always thinking of
fashion-plates and curling-irons and love and shopping. Name me, if
you can, four vainer, tiresomer, or more unfruitful topics. Have you
never waked in your bed at midnight to wonder how it has come to pass
that I, at my time of life, with my attractions, am still a bachelor?
To wonder what untold disappointment, what unwritten history of sorrow,
has left me the lonely, brooding celibate you see? I 'll lift the
veil--a moment of epanchement. It's because I 've never met a
marriageable woman who had n't her noddle stuffed with curling-irons
and fashion-plates and love and shopping."

"Do you happen to know where she com