It was about a week before his encounter with Vaughan in the park—and on a fine autumn day—that the Honourable Bob, walking with Sir Robert by the Garden Pool, allowed his eyes to travel over the prospect. The smooth-shaven lawns, the stately, lichened house, the far-stretching park, with its beech-knolls and slopes of verdure, he found all fair; and when to these, when to the picture on which his bodily eyes rested, that portrait of Mary—Mary, in white muslin and blue ribbons, bowing her graceful head while Sir Robert read prayers—which he carried in his memory, he told himself that he was an uncommonly happy fellow. Beauty he might have had, wealth he might have had, family too. But to alight on all in such perfection, to lose his heart where his head approved the step, was a gift of fortune so rare, that as he strutted and talked by the side of his host, his face beamed with ineffable good-humour. Nevertheless for a few moments silence had fallen between the two; and gradually Sir Robert’s face had assumed a grave and melancholy look. He sighed more than once, and when he spoke, it was to repeat in different words what he had already said. “Certainly, you may speak,” he said, in a tone of some formality. “And I have little doubt, Mr. Flixton, that your overtures will be received as they deserve.” “Yes? Yes? You think so?” Flixton answered with manifest delight. “You really think so, Sir Robert, do you?” “I think so,” his host replied. “Not only because your suit is in every way eligible, and one which does us honour.” He bowed courteously as he uttered the compliment. “But because, Mr. Flixton, for docility—and I think a husband may congratulate himself on the fact——” “To be sure! To be sure!” Flixton cried, not permitting him to finish. “Yes, Sir Robert, capital! You mean that if I am not a happy man——” “It will not be the fault of your wife,” Sir Robert said; remembering with a faint twinge of conscience that the Honourable Bob’s past had not been without its histories. “No! By gad, Sir Robert, no! You’re quite right! She’s got an ank——” He stopped abruptly, his mouth open; bethinking himself, when it was almost too late, that her father was not the person to whom to detail her personal charms. But Sir Robert had not divined the end of the sentence. He was a trifle deaf. “Yes?” he said. “She’s an—an—animated manner, I was going to say,” Flixton answered with more readiness than fervour. And he blessed himself for his presence of mind. “Animated? Yes, but gentle also,” Sir Robert replied, well-nigh purring as he did so. “I should say that gentleness, and—and indeed, my dear fellow, goodness, were the—but perhaps I am saying more than I should.” “Not at all!” Flixton answered with heartiness. “Gad, I could listen to you all day, Sir Robert.”