e's much too sensible," growls her husband, but adds, with
infinite compassion, "He'll have to, some day, or the name will die
out."

"Yes, I shall have to, some day, to use your very grammatical
expression," assents Brandolin. "I don't wish the name to die out, and
there's nobody to come after me except the Southesk-Vanes, who detest me
as I detest them."

"Well, then, why not make some marriage at once?" says Lady Usk. "I know
so many charming----"

Brandolin arrests the sentence with a deprecatory gesture, "Dear Lady
Usk, _please_! I like you so much, I wouldn't for worlds have you mixed
up in anything which would probably, or at least very possibly, make me
so much dislike you in the years to come."

Usk gives a laugh of much enjoyment.

His wife is slightly annoyed. She does not like this sort of jesting.

"You said a moment ago that you must marry!" she observes, with some
impatience.

"Oh, there is no positive 'must' about it," says Brandolin, dubiously.
"The name doesn't matter greatly, after all; it is only that I don't
like the place to go to the Southesk-Vanes: they are my cousins, heaven
knows how many times removed; they have most horrible politics, and they
are such dreadfully prosaic people that I am sure they will destroy my
gardens, poison my Indian beasts, strangle my African birds, turn my old
servants adrift, and make the country round hideous with high farming."

"Marry, then, and put an end to anything so dreadful," says Dorothy Usk.

Brandolin gets up and walks about the room. It is a dilemma which has
often been present to his mind in various epochs of his existence.

"You see, my dear people," he says, with affectionate confidence, "the
real truth of the matter is this. A good woman is an admirable creation
of Providence, for certain uses in her generation; but she is tiresome.
A naughty woman is delightful; but then she is, if you marry her,
compromising. Which am I to take of the two? I should be bored to death
by what Renan calls _la femme pure_, and against _la femme taree_ as a
wife I have a prejudice. The woman who would amuse me I would not marry
if I could, and as, if I were bored, I should leave my wife entirely,
and go to the Equator or the Pole, it would not be honest in me to
sacrifice a virgin to the mere demands of my family pride."

Lady Usk feels shocked, but she does not like to show it, because it is
so old-fashioned and prudish and _arriere_ nowadays to be shocked