n telling. Well, thank God, I don't take that
weakness after him. I never went mad about any woman. You've just as
much control over love, if you like, as over a quiet shooting pony; and
if it don't suit you to gallop, you can rein up and give over the sport.
Any man who's anything of a philosopher needn't fall in love unless he
likes."

"Were you never in love, then, old boy?" I asked.

"Of course I have been. I've made love to no end of women in my time;
but when one love was died out I took another, as I take a cigar, and
never wept over the quenched ashes. You need never fall in love unless
it's convenient, and as to caring for a girl who don't care for you,
that's a contemptible weakness, and one I don't sympathize with at all.
Come along, or the train will be off."

He went up to the carriages, opened a door, shut it hastily, and turned
away, with the frigid bow with which Telfer, in common with every other
Briton, can say, "Go to the devil," as plainly as if he spoke.

"By Jove!" said I, "what's that eccentric move? Did you see the Medusa
in that carriage, or a baby?"

"Something quite as bad," said he, curtly. "I saw the Tressillian and
her aunt. For Heaven's sake, let's get away from them. I'd rather have a
special train, if it cost me a fortune, than travel with that girl,
boxed up for four hours in the same compartment with such a little
intrigante."

"Calm your mind, old fellow; if she's aiming at your governor she won't
hit you. She can't be your wife and your mother-in-law both," laughed
Fred Walsham, a good-natured little chap in the Carabiniers, a friend of
Von Edenburgh, who was coming with us.

"I'll see her shot before she's either," said Telfer, fiercely stroking
his moustache.

"Hush! the deuce! hold your tongue," said Walsham, giving him a push.
For past us, so close that the curling plumes in her hat touched the
Major's shoulder, floated the "little intrigante" in question, who'd
come out of her carriage to see where a pug of hers was put. She'd heard
all we said, confound it, for her head was up, her color bright, and she
looked at Telfer proudly and disdainfully, with her dark eyes flashing.
Telfer returned it to the full as haughtily, for he never shirked the
consequences of his own actions ('pon my life, they looked like a great
stag and a little greyhound challenging each other), and Violet swept
away across the platform.

"You've made an enemy for life, Telfer," said Walsham, as w