The secret contempt that a commonplace man feels for a woman who falls in love with him comes from a secret conviction that he is not worthy of it, however blatant his vanity and self-love may be. But Skelton, the proudest but the least vain of men, was instinctively conscious that a woman who fell in love with him was really in love with certain great and commanding qualities he had. His self-love spoke the language of common sense to him. He did not give up the fight so quickly and conclusively as the younger and more impressionable Sylvia did. Knowing of a great stumbling block in his way, he had guarded himself against vague, sweet fancies. But Skelton was too wise a man not to know that when the master passion appeared and said “Lo, I am here!” he is not to be dismissed like a lackey, but, willingly or unwillingly, he must be entertained. The great passions are all unmannerly. They come at inconvenient seasons without asking leave, and the master of the house must give place to these mighty and commanding guests. Women meet them obsequiously at the door; men remain to be sought by these lordly visitors, but do not thereby escape. As Skelton felt more and more the charm of Sylvia’s sweetness, the ineffable flattery of her passion for him, a furious dissatisfaction began to work in him. If only he were placed like other men! But if he should love, the only way he could satisfy it would be by endowing the Blairs, whom he hated from his soul, with all his dead wife’s vast fortune, or else proclaiming a certain thing about Lewis Pryor that would indeed make him rich, but make him also to be despised. Neither of these things could he bear to think of then. He was not yet so subjugated that pride and revenge could be displaced at once. But still he could not drag himself away from Sylvia. It was Sylvia, in the end, who broke away from him. She glanced at a little watch she wore, and a flood of colour poured into her face. She looked so guilty that Skelton smiled, but it was rather a melancholy smile. He thought that they were like two fair ships driven against each other to their destruction by vagabond winds and contrary tides. CHAPTER XIII. Every circumstance connected with the coming race meeting disgusted Bulstrode more and more. One night, sitting over the walnuts and the wine in the dining-room at Deerchase with Skelton and Lewis, Bulstrode gave vent to his dissatisfaction. He did not always dine with Skelton, and, indeed, when Bob Skinny’s emissary came to his door to say that dinner was served, Bulstrode would generally answer: “Oh, hang dinner! I had a chop in the middle of the day, and I’ll be shot if I’ll sit for two hours with Skelton over a lot of French kickshaws, with him looking superciliously at me every time I touch the decanter.” Bob Skinny would translate this message as follows: “Mr. Bulstrode, he present he compliments, sah, an’ he say, ef you will have de circumlocution to excuse him, he done had he dinner.”