ove, except you. I have sometimes fancied I could marry for
money and position,--to help myself on in the world by means of a
wife,--but when my mind has run away with me, to revel amidst ideas
of feminine sweetness, you have always--always been the heroine of
the tale, as the mistress of the happy castle in the air."

"Have I?" she asked.

"Always,--always. As regards this,"--and he struck himself on the
breast,--"no man was ever more constant. Though I don't think much of
myself as a man, I know a woman when I see her." But he did not ask
her to be his wife;--nor did he wait at Fawn Court till Lady Fawn had
come back with the carriage.

CHAPTER XIII

Showing What Frank Greystock Did

Frank Greystock escaped from the dovecote before Lady Fawn had
returned. He had not made his visit to Richmond with any purpose of
seeing Lucy Morris, or of saying to her when he did see her anything
special,--of saying anything that should, or anything that should
not, have been said. He had gone there, in truth, simply because his
cousin had asked him, and because it was almost a duty on his part to
see his cousin on the momentous occasion of this new engagement. But
he had declared to himself that old Lady Fawn was a fool, and that
to see Lucy again would be very pleasant. "See her;--of course I'll
see her," he had said. "Why should I be prevented from seeing her?"
Now he had seen her, and as he returned by the train to London, he
acknowledged to himself that it was no longer in his power to promote
his fortune by marriage. He had at last said that to Lucy which made
it impossible for him to offer his hand to any other woman. He had
not, in truth, asked her to be his wife; but he had told her that he
loved her, and could never love any other woman. He had asked for no
answer to this assurance, and then he had left her.

In the course of that afternoon he did question himself as to his
conduct to this girl, and subjected himself to some of the rigours
of a cross-examination. He was not a man who could think of a girl
as the one human being whom he loved above all others, and yet look
forward with equanimity to the idea of doing her an injury. He could
understand that a man unable to marry should be reticent as to his
feelings,--supposing him to have been weak enough to have succumbed
to a passion which could only mar his own prospects. He was frank
enough in owning to himself that he had been thus weak. The weakness
had