"Odd, indeed, but most lucky! We can go together, if you are not better engaged." Lord Doltimore coloured and hesitated. On the one hand he was a little afraid of being alone with so clever a man; on the other hand, it was an honour,--it was something for him to talk of to Legard. Nevertheless, the shyness got the better of the vanity. He excused himself; he feared he was engaged to take down Legard. Lumley smiled, and changed the conversation; and so agreeable did he make himself, that when the party broke up, and Lumley had just shaken hands with his host, Doltimore came to him, and said in a little confusion,-- "I think I can put off Legard--if--if you--" "That's delightful! What time shall we start?--need not get down much before dinner--one o'clock?" "Oh, yes! not too long before dinner; one o'clock will be a little too early." "Two then. Where are you staying?" "At Fenton's." "I will call for you. Good-night! I long to see Thunderer!" CHAPTER VI. LA sante de l'ame n'est pas plus assuree que celle du corps; et quoique l'on paraisse eloigne des passions, on n'est pas moins en danger de s'y laisser emporter que de tomber malade quand on se porte bien.*--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. * "The health of the soul is not more sure than that of the body; and although we may appear free from passions, there is not the less danger of their attack than of falling sick at the moment we are well." IN spite of the efforts of Maltravers to shun all occasions of meeting Evelyn, they were necessarily sometimes thrown together in the round of provincial hospitalities; and certainly, if either Mr. Merton or Caroline (the shrewder observer of the two) had ever formed any suspicion that Evelyn had made a conquest of Maltravers, his manner at such times effectually removed it. Maltravers was a man to feel deeply, but no longer a boy to yield to every tempting impulse. I have said that FORTITUDE was his favourite virtue, but fortitude is the virtue of great and rare occasions; there was another, equally hard-favoured and unshowy, which he took as the staple of active and every-day duties, and that virtue was JUSTICE. Now, in earlier life, he had been enamoured of the conventional Florimel that we call HONOUR,--a shifting and shadowy phantom, that is but the reflex of the opinion of the time and clime. But justice has in it something permanent and solid; and out of justice arises the real not the false honour. "Honour!" said Maltravers,--"honour is to justice as the flower to the plant,--its efflorescence, its bloom, its consummation! But honour that does not spring from justice is but a piece of painted rag, an artificial rose, which the men-milliners of society would palm upon us as more natural than the true."