His income was not considerable, but they told him that to double his expenses was certain economy. He was very lonely, and he loved company. His age was that at which the affections and the instincts alike impel the man to know more of woman--the processes of her mind, her capacities, her emotions, the idiosyncrasies which divided her from his own sex. Hitherto he had been chaste, though once when he had confessed it to Terrapin, that incredulous person said something about the marines, and repeated it as a good joke; he felt, indeed, that he was not entirely manly. He had half a doubt that he was worthy to walk with men, else why had not his desires, like theirs, been stronger than his virtue; and had not the very feebleness of desire proved also a feebleness of power? But, more than all, he had a weakness for Suzette. There was old Terrapin, with bonnets and dresses in his wardrobe, and a sewing-basket on his mantel, and with his own huge boots outside the door a pair of tapering gaiters, and in his easy-chair a little being to sing and chatter and mix his punch and make his cigarettes. Ah! how much more entrancing would be Ralph's chamber with Suzette to garnish it! He would make a thousand studies of her face; she should be his model, his professor, his divinity! What was gross in her he would refine; what dark he would make known. They would walk together by the river side, into the parks, into the open country. He would know no regrets for the friends across the sea. Europe would become beautiful to him, and his art would find inspiration from so much loveliness. No indissoluble tie would bind them, to make kindness a duty and love necessity. No social tyranny should prescribe where he should visit, and where she should not. The hues of the picture deepened and brightened as he imagined it. He was resolved to do this thing, though a phantom should come to his bedside every night, and every shadow be his accusation. He committed to memory some phrases of French; Terrapin was his interpreter, and they went together--those three and a sober _cocher_--to the Bois de Boulogne. Terrapin stated to Suzette in a shockingly informal way that Ralph loved her and would give her a beautiful chamber and relieve her from the drudgery of the glove-shop. They were passing down the broad, gravelled drive, with the foliage above them edged with moonlight, the mock cataract singing musically below, and the _cocher_, half asleep, nodding and slashing his horses. And while Terrapin turned his head and made himself invisible in cigar-smoke, Ralph folded Suzette to his breast, and kissed her once so demonstratively that the _cocher_ awoke with a spring and nearly fell off the box, but was quite too much of a _cocher_ to turn and investigate the matter.