And Churchill--what of him? Alas, regardless of his doom, that little victim played! When old Marmaduke gave the signal for retiring, Churchill would not, on this night, follow the other men into the smoking-room. The politics, the ribaldry, the scandal, the horsey-doggy talk, would be all more intolerable than ever; he wanted to be alone, to go through that process, so familiar to him on all difficult occasions, of "thinking it out;" so he told Gumble to take a bottle of claret to his room, and, arrived there, he lit his old meerschaum, and leant out of the window gazing over the distant moonlit park. But this time the "thinking it out" failed dismally; amid the white smoke-wreaths curling before him rose a tall, slight grateful figure; in his ear yet lingered the sound of a clear low voice; his hand yet retained the thrill which ran through him as she touched it in wishing him "good night." He thought of _her_ as he had never thought of woman before, and he gloried in the thought: he was no love-sick boy, to waste in fond despair, and sicken in his longing; he was a strong, healthy man, with a faultless digestion, an earnest will, a clear conscience, and a heart thinking no guile. There was the difference in the rank, certainly--and in connexion with this reflection a grim smile crossed his face as he remembered Harding, and his caution about "swells"--but what of that? Did not good education, and a life that would bear scrutiny, lift a man to any rank? and would not she--and then he drew from his pocket a dainty, pearl-gray glove (Jouvin's two-buttoned, letter B), and pressed it to his lips. It _was_ silly, ladies and gentlemen, I admit; but then, you know, it never happened to any of _us_; and though "the court, the camp, the grove" suffer, we have the pleasure of thinking that the senate, the bar, the commerce of England, and the public press, always escape scot-free.