ered
that he was about the last person in the world to form a romantic
attachment. There was no kind of sentimental wistfulness in his nature;
his imagination had no poetical trick of investing the face and form of
any passably good-looking girl with a halo of rainbow-hues; even as a
lad his dreams had concerned themselves more with the possibility of his
becoming a great musician than with his sharing his fame and glory with
a radiant bride. But, above all, the rhodomontade of simulated passion
that he heard in the theatre, and the extravagance of action necessary
for stage effect, would of themselves have tended to render him
sceptical and callous. He saw too much of how it was done. Did ever any
man in his senses swear by the eternal stars in talking to a woman; and
did ever any man in his senses kneel at a woman's feet? In former times
they may have done so, when fustian and attitudinizing were not fustian
and attitudinizing, but common habit and practice; but in our own day
did the love-making of the stage, with all its frantic gestures and
wild appeals, represent anything belonging to actual life? Of course, if
the question had been pushed home, he would have had to admit that love
as a violent passion does veritably exist, or otherwise there would not
be so many young men blowing out their brains, and young women drowning
themselves, out of disappointment; but probably he would have pointed
out that in these cases the coroner's jury invariably and charitably
certify that the victim is insane.

No; romance had never been much in his way, except the sham romance
which he had assumed along with a painted face and a stage costume, and
of which he knew the just and accurate value. He had never had time to
fall seriously in love, he used to say to Maurice Mangan. And now, in
this long spell of idleness in the North, amid these gracious
surroundings, if he had had to confess that he found a singular
fascination in the society of Honnor Cunyngham, why, he would have
discovered a dozen reasons and excuses rather than admit that poetical
sentiment had anything to do with it. For one thing, she was different
from any woman he had ever met before; and that of itself piqued his
curiosity. You had to speak the downright truth to her--when she looked
at you with those clear hazel eyes; little make-believes of flattery
were of no use at all. Her very tranquillity and isolation were a sort
of challenge; her almost masculine indep