are, never movin', like a mad 'un. And then hoam
agin all slack as if he'd been beaten in a race by somebody."

"There is no woman in that!" mused the baronet. "He would have ridden
back as hard as he went," reflected this profound scientific humanist,
"had there been a woman in it. He would shun vast expanses, and
seek shade, concealment, solitude. The desire for distances betokens
emptiness and undirected hunger: when the heart is possessed by an image
we fly to wood and forest, like the guilty."

Adrian's report accused his pupil of an extraordinary access of
cynicism.

"Exactly," said the baronet. "As I foresaw. At this period an insatiate
appetite is accompanied by a fastidious palate. Nothing but the
quintessences of existence, and those in exhaustless supplies,
will satisfy this craving, which is not to be satisfied! Hence his
bitterness. Life can furnish no food fitting for him. The strength and
purity of his energies have reached to an almost divine height, and roam
through the Inane. Poetry, love, and such-like, are the drugs earth has
to offer to high natures, as she offers to low ones debauchery. 'Tis a
sign, this sourness, that he is subject to none of the empiricisms that
are afloat. Now to keep him clear of them!"

The Titans had an easier task in storming Olympus. As yet, however, it
could not be said that Sir Austin's System had failed. On the contrary,
it had reared a youth, handsome, intelligent, well-bred, and, observed
the ladies, with acute emphasis, innocent. Where, they asked, was such
another young man to be found?

"Oh!" said Lady Blandish to Sir Austin, "if men could give their hands
to women unsoiled--how different would many a marriage be! She will be a
happy girl who calls Richard husband."

"Happy, indeed!" was the baronet's caustic ejaculation. "But where shall
I meet one equal to him, and his match?"

"I was innocent when I was a girl," said the lady.

Sir Austin bowed a reserved opinion.

"Do you think no girls innocent?"

Sir Austin gallantly thought them all so.

"No, that you know they are not," said the lady, stamping. "But they are
more innocent than boys, I am sure."

"Because of their education, madam. You see now what a youth can
be. Perhaps, when my System is published, or rather--to speak more
humbly--when it is practised, the balance may be restored, and we shall
have virtuous young men."

"It's too late for poor me to hope for a husband from one of them," sai