deceptively.

The young man laughed bitterly:

"So that is something of what you think of me? for I see you are not
serious! It's a folly, of course, a sentimental folly," he met
Bulstrode's eyes that silently accused him of a like--"but only a man
in love knows what sentimental follies are worth! There is"--the young
man was suddenly serious, "a sort of prodigality in love only
understood by certain temperaments, certain races: it may be
degenerate: I suppose it is, and to push it quite to the last phase,
is, of course, cowardly, certainly very weak, and men like you,
Monsieur, will deem it so."

"You mean--?" and now Bulstrode's tone urged him to make himself clear.

"I mean," said De Presle-Vaulx firmly, "rather than renounce this woman
I adore I will without doubt--(given the tangle in which the whole
matter is!...") and he could not for the life of him put his intention
into words. He smiled nevertheless unmistakably. Bulstrode leaned
across the table and put his hand on the other's arm.

"Then you don't love her well enough not to break her heart? Or well
enough to live a commonplace life for her?"

"I don't know how to do it."

"Well," said Bulstrode, "I have run upon quite a good many hard
moments, perhaps some, in their way, as difficult as this, and I have
never thought of getting out of the muddle. Perhaps it _is_ a
question, as you say, of temperament and race. I am inclined also to
think, stubbornly, that it is a question of the quality of the love
that one has for the woman. You won't think it impertinent of me, my
dear friend,"--and his tone was such that no one could have thought it
impertinent--"you won't, I am sure, take it amiss if we talk this over
to-morrow, and if I try to show you something that means _life_,
instead of what you plan."

"You know you as good as stood for De Presle-Vaulx."

Bulstrode held Mrs. Falconer's parasol, her fan, as well as a gold bag
purse full of louis, a handkerchief and his own cane and field-glass.
For the lady, standing on a chair the better to see the race-track, was
applauding with enthusiasm the result of the first handicap. She had
placed a bet on a horse called Plum-Branch "from a feeling of
sentiment," as she said, because she had, that day, quite by chance,
selected a hat with a decorative plum-branch amongst other garnitures.

"I am _standing_, certainly, Jimmy," she replied to his remark, "and to
the peril of my high heels!-- _There_,