nks between his uncle and Diana Warwick, whatever
they had been; particularly at the present revival of them. Old Lady
Dacier's blunt speech, and his father's fixed opinion, hissed in his
head.

They were ignorant of his autumnal visit to the Italian Lakes, after
the winter's Nile-boat expedition; and also of the degree of his recent
intimacy with Mrs. Warwick; or else, as he knew, he would have heard
more hissing things. Her patronage of Miss Paynham exposed her to
attacks where she was deemed vulnerable; Lady Dacier muttered old
saws as to the flocking of birds; he did not accurately understand it,
thought it indiscreet, at best. But in regard to his experience, he
could tell himself that a woman more guileless of luring never drew
breath. On the contrary, candour said it had always been he who had
schemed and pressed for the meeting. He was at liberty to do it, not
being bound in honour elsewhere. Besides, despite his acknowledgement
of her beauty, Mrs. Warwick was not quite his ideal of the perfectly
beautiful woman.

Constance Asper came nearer to it. He had the English taste for red and
white, and for cold outlines: he secretly admired a statuesque demeanour
with a statue's eyes. The national approbation of a reserved haughtiness
in woman, a tempered disdain in her slightly lifted small upperlip and
drooped eyelids, was shared by him; and Constance Asper, if not exactly
aristocratic by birth, stood well for that aristocratic insular type,
which seems to promise the husband of it a casket of all the trusty
virtues, as well as the security of frigidity in the casket. Such was
Dacier's native taste; consequently the attractions of Diana Warwick for
him were, he thought, chiefly mental, those of a Lady Egeria. She might
or might not be good, in the vulgar sense. She was an agreeable woman,
an amusing companion, very suggestive, inciting, animating; and her past
history must be left as her own. Did it matter to him? What he saw was
bright, a silver crescent on the side of the shadowy ring. Were it
a question of marrying her!--That was out of the possibilities. He
remembered, moreover, having heard from a man, who professed to know,
that Mrs. Warwick had started in married life by treating her husband
cavalierly to an intolerable degree: 'Such as no Englishman could
stand,' the portly old informant thundered, describing it and her in
racy vernacular. She might be a devil of a wife. She was a pleasant
friend; just the