'Well, look here; I've re-visited the world since you have, and, believe me, you are much better outside. It's a horrid, over-crowded, noisy place, and, as for the artists in whom you are so much interested, you must worship them from afar if you want to worship them at all. Painters, actors, writers, and the rest--the successful ones are snobs, the unsuccessful--sponges. And as for the dresses, my child, there was never a frock sent out of Bond Street so pretty, so tasteful, or so becoming as the one you have on.' But Babiole glanced down at her blue serge gown rather disdainfully, and there shone in her eyes, as brightly as ever, that vague hunger of a woman's first youth for emotions and pleasures, which every morning's sunshine seemed to promise her, and whose names she did not know. 'Ah,' she said gaily, 'but everybody doesn't speak like that. I shall wait until your friends come in the summer, and see what they tell me about it.' My face clouded, and, with the pretty affectionateness with which she now always treated me, she assured me that she did not really want any advice but mine, and that, as long as I was good enough to teach her, she was content to read the lessons of the busy world through my eyes. Meanwhile, however, I was myself, through those same eyes of mine, learning a far more dangerous lesson, and one, unluckily, which I could never hope to impart to any woman. I had no one but myself to thank for my folly, into which I had coolly walked with my eyes open. But the temptation to direct that fair young mind had been too strong for me, and, having once indulged in the pleasure, the few months away had but increased my craving to taste it again. This second winter we worked even harder than the first. Babiole, with her expanding mind, and the passionate excitement she began to throw into every pursuit, became daily a more fascinating pupil. She would slide down from her chair on to a footstool at my side when discussion grew warm between us concerning an interesting chapter we had been reading. She would put her hand on my shoulder with affectionate persuasion if I disagreed with her, or tap my fingers impatiently to hurry my expression of opinion. How could she know that the ugly grave man, with furrows in his scarred face, and already whitening hair, was young and hot-blooded too, with passions far stronger than hers, and all the stronger from being iron-bound?