"I'm afraid she does not always behave quite nicely to you, Mr. Price," he said. And he said it with a little air of apology and proprietorship which he would not have assumed yesterday. "Oh, you're quite mistaken, my dear boy; she's as nice as possible with me. I like Castalia Kilfinane. There's a great deal of good about her, and she's well educated and clever in her way--not showy, you know, what?--but--oh, a nice creature! There's a sort of bitter twang about her, you know, that I like immensely." "Oh, well," cried Algernon, laughing outright, "if you have a liking for bitters, indeed----" "Ah, but she doesn't mean it. It's just a little flavour--a little _soupçon_. Oh, upon my word, I think Miss Kilfinane a thoroughly nice creature. It was a pity about Deepville now, eh, what?" "I wonder that you never thought of trying your fortune in that quarter yourself, Mr. Price!" said Algernon, looking at him curiously, as they passed within the glare of a street-lamp. "Is it me? Ah, now, I thought everybody knew that I wasn't a marrying man. Besides, there never was the least probability that Miss Kilfinane would have had me--none in the world. Sure, she'd never think of looking at a bald old bachelor like myself, what?" Algernon did not feel called on to pursue the subject. But he had a conviction that Jack Price would not, under any circumstances, have given Miss Kilfinane the chance of accepting him. The allusion, however, seemed to have touched some long-silent chord of feeling in Jack, and set it vibrating. As they sat at supper together, Jack reverted to the sage, mentor-like tone he had assumed that morning, giving Algernon much sound advice of a worldly nature, and holding up his own case as a warning to all young men who liked to "bolt to the left when they were told to go to the right," and presenting himself in the unusual light of a gloomy and disappointed person; and when a couple of tumblers of hot punch smoked on the table, Jack grew tender and sentimental. "Ah, my dear Errington," he said, "I wish ye may never know what it is to be a lonely old bachelor!" "Lonely? Why you're the most popular man in London, out-and-out!" "Popular! And what good does that do me? If I were dead to-morrow, who'd care, do you think? Although that doesn't seem to me to be such a hard case as people say. Sure, I don't want anyone to cry when I'm dead; but I'd like 'em to care for me a little while I'm living. If I'd been my own elder brother, now; or if I'd taken advantage of my opportunities, and made a good fortune, as I might have done----But 'twas one scrape after another I put my foot into. I did and said whatever came uppermost. And you'll find, my dear boy, that it's the foolish things that mostly do come uppermost." "It's lucky that, amongst other foolish things, an imprudent marriage never rose to the surface," said Algernon.