of
art, loved it too. Yet, instead of talking of the picture, they talked
of Lavretsky, who was looking at them sardonically from beneath his
heavy eyelids.

CHAPTER XII

A FEW days afterwards you might have seen Paul dashing through the
quiet main street Of Morebury in a high dog-cart, on his way to call on
the Princess. A less Fortunate Youth might have had to walk, risking
boots impolitely muddy, or to hire a funereal cab from the local
job-master; but Paul had only to give an order, and the cart and showy
chestnut were brought round to the front door of Drane's Court. He
loved to drive the showy chestnut, whose manifold depravities were the
terror of Miss Winwood's life. Why didn't he take the cob? It was so
much safer. Whereupon he would reply gaily that in the first place he
found no amusement in driving woolly lambs, and in the second that if
he did not take some of the devil out of the chestnut it would become
the flaming terror of the countryside. So Paul, spruce in hard felt hat
and box-cloth overcoat, clattered joyously through the Morebury
streets, returning the salutations of the little notabilities of the
town with the air of the owner not only of horse and cart, but of half
the hearts in the place. He was proud of his popularity, and it
scarcely entered his head that he was not the proprietor of his
equipage. Besides, he was going to call on the Princess. He hoped that
she would be alone: not that he had anything particular to say to her,
or had any defined idea of love-making; but he was eight-and-twenty, an
age at which desire has not yet failed and there is not the sign of a
burdensome grasshopper anywhere about.

But the Princess was not alone. He found Mademoiselle de Cressy in
charge of the tea-table and the conversation. Like many Frenchwomen,
she had a high-pitched voice; she also had definite opinions on
matter-of-fact subjects. Now when you have come to talk gossamer with
an attractive and sympathetic woman, it is irritating to have to
discuss Tariff Reform and the position of the working classes in
Germany with somebody else, especially when the attractive and pretty
woman does not give you in any way to understand that she would prefer
gossamer to such arid topics. The Princess was as gracious as you
please. She made him feel that he was welcome in her cosy boudoir; but
there was no further exchange of mutually understanding glances. If a
great lady entertaining a penniless young man