it?" asked Lady Grace,
languidly.

"I am always more at my ease when I know the geography of the land I
live in," said Dunn, smiling.

"I should say you have great gifts in that way,--I mean in deciphering
character," said Lady Lackington.

"Your Ladyship flatters me. I have no pretensions of the kind. Once
satisfied of the sincerity of those with whom I come into contact, I
never strive to know more, nor have I the faculties to attempt more."

"But, in your wide-spread intercourse with life, do you not, insensibly
as it were, become an adept in reading men's natures?"

"I don't think so, my Lady. The more one sees of life the simpler does
it seem, not from any study of humanity, but by the easy fact that three
or four motives sway the whole world. An unsupplied want of one kind or
other--wealth, rank, distinction, affection, it may be--gives the entire
impulse to a character, just as a passion imparts the expression to a
face; and all the diversities of temperament, like those of countenance,
are nothing but the impress of a want,--you may call it a wish. Now
it may be," added he, and as he spoke he stole a glance, quick as
lightning, at Lady Grace, "that such experiences are more common to men
like myself,--men, I mean, who are intrusted with the charge of others'
interests; but assuredly I have no clew to character save in that one
feature,--a want."

"But I want fifty thousand things," said Lady Lacking-ton. "I want a
deal of money; I want that beautiful villa near Palermo, the 'Serra
Novena;' I want that Arab pony Kratuloff rides in the park; I want, in
short, everything that pleases me every hour of the day."

"These are not wants that make impulses, no more than a passing shower
makes a climate," said Dunn. "What I speak of is that unceasing,
unwearied desire that is with us in joy or sadness, that journeys with
us and lives with us, mingling in every action, blending with every
thought, and presenting to our minds a constant picture of ourselves
under some wished-for aspect different from all we have ever known,
where we are surrounded with other impulses and swayed by other
passions, and yet still identically ourselves. Lady Grace apprehends
me."

"Perhaps,--at least partly," said she, fanning herself and concealing
her face.

"There are very few exempt from a temptation of this sort, or, if they
be, it is because their minds are dissipated on various objects."

"I hate things to be called temptat