rong. He wore
his hair, which was of a fair chestnut, long, and in loose curls;
and instead of the Englishman's whiskers, indulged in the foreigner's
mustache. His complexion was delicate, though not effeminate: it was
rather the delicacy of a student than of a woman. But in his clear
gray eye there was a wonderful vigour of life. A skilful physiologist,
looking only into that eye, would have recognized rare stamina of
constitution,--a nature so rich that, while easily disturbed, it would
require all the effects of time, or all the fell combinations of passion
and grief, to exhaust it. Even now, though so thoughtful, and even so
sad, the rays of that eye were as concentrated and steadfast as the
light of the diamond.

"You were only, then, in jest," said Audley, after a long silence,
"when you spoke of this mission to Florence. You have still no idea of
entering into public life?"

"None."

"I had hoped better things when I got your promise to pass one season in
London; but, indeed, you have kept your promise to the ear to break it
to the spirit. I could not presuppose that you would shun all society,
and be as much of a hermit here as under the vines of Como."

"I have sat in the Strangers' Gallery, and heard your great speakers;
I have been in the pit of the opera, and seen your fine ladies; I have
walked your streets; I have lounged in your parks, and I say that
I can't fall in love with a faded dowager, because she fills up her
wrinkles with rouge."

"Of what dowager do you speak?" asked the matter-of-fact Audley.

"She has a great many titles. Some people call her Fashion, you busy
men, Politics: it is all one,--tricked out and artificial. I mean London
Life. No, I can't fall in love with her, fawning old harridan!"

"I wish you could fall in love with something."

"I wish I could, with all my heart."

"But you are so blaze."

"On the contrary, I am so fresh. Look out of the window--what do you
see?"

"Nothing!"

"Nothing?"

"Nothing but houses and dusty lilacs, my coachman dozing on his box, and
two women in pattens crossing the kennel."

"I see not those where I lie on the sofa. I see but the stars. And I
feel for them as I did when I was a schoolboy at Eton. It is you who
are blaze, not I. Enough of this. You do not forget my commission with
respect to the exile who has married into your brother's family?"

"No; but here you set me a task more difficult than that of saddling
your cornet on t