"Is there any reason why I should not intrude?" said Mrs. Docimer, opening the door when the above conversation had been extended for perhaps another hour. "Not in the least, as far as I'm concerned," said Frank. "A few words have been spoken between us, all of which may be repeated to you if Imogene can remember them." "Every one of them," said Imogene; "but I hardly think that I shall repeat them." "I suppose they have been very much a matter of course," said Mrs. Docimer;--"the old story repeated between you two for the fourth or fifth time. Considering all things, do you think that I should congratulate you?" "I ask for no congratulation," said Imogene. "You may certainly congratulate me," said Frank. After that the conversation became tame, and the happy lover soon escaped from the house into the street. When there he found very much to occupy his mind. He had certainly made his resolution at last, and had done so in a manner which would now leave him no power of retrogression. The whole theory of his life had,--with a vengeance,--been thrown to the winds. "The little place abroad,"--or elsewhere,--was now a settled certainty. He had nearly got the better of her. He had all but succeeded in putting down his own love and hers by a little gentle ridicule, and by a few half-wise phrases which she at the moment had been unable to answer; but she now had in truth vanquished him by the absolute sincerity of her love. CHAPTER XLII. ANOTHER DUEL. Frank Houston on that Sunday afternoon became an altered man. The reader is not to suppose by this that he is declared to have suddenly thrown off all his weaknesses, and to have succeeded in clothing himself in an armour of bright steel, proof for the rest of his life against all temptations. Such suits of armour are not to be had at a moment's notice; nor, as I fear, can a man ever acquire one quite perfect at all points who has not begun to make it for himself before Houston's age. But he did on that day dine off the two mutton chops, and comforted himself with no more than the half-pint of sherry. It was a great beginning. Throughout the whole evening he could not be got for a moment to join any of the club juntas which were discussing the great difficulty of the contumacious gentleman. "I think he must really be going to be married at last!" one club pundit said when a question was asked as to Houston's singular behaviour on the occasion.