"Yours!" he answered--("Now it's coming," she thought)--"Yours! Not individually, but collectively, as of that sex which seems to be the natural bane of ours. If I could begin again, I would forswear female society altogether. I should be a better, and certainly a happier man. As it is, my life has been wasted in looking for something I always failed to find. Did you ever see Grantley Berkeley's book? There it is on the table. I dare say you've never looked into it. Read it, if you want to find poetry in sport. He seems to entertain a gentle, kindly feeling for every living creature, wild or tame. He tells a story of one of his hounds--Champion or Challenger, if I remember right--that used to detach itself from the pack on hunting mornings, and come to its mistress's pony-chaise for a morsel of biscuit and a caress. Ever afterwards, when drafted into another county, the faithful, true-hearted dog would break away, and gallop up to every open carriage that arrived at the meet, returning from each succeeding disappointment with a sadder expression on his wise, honest face--a more piteous look in his meek, brown, wistful eyes. I've been like poor Champion or Challenger. So often, I've thought I had found my heart's desire at last! Then I strained every nerve to win, and _did_ win, too; only to learn, over and over again, that she had not deceived me half so deeply as I had deceived myself. Shall I confess that the woman who, in my whole life, has approached nearest the ideal of my heart, was one whom my reason, my experience, and my moral sense, deteriorated though it is, convicted as the vilest and the worst?" Few people had ever seen Sir Henry in earnest. Certainly not Mrs. Lascelles; and she was almost frightened. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "After such an experience, you'll surely never try again?" He seemed to wake up from a dream. The ruling passion was not to be controlled; and habit, stronger than nature, impelled him, though for the hundredth time, to recommence the old story in the old familiar strain. "Just once more," he said, drawing his chair nearer the frail spider-legged tea-table that constituted the only barrier between them. "It's hard if a man seeks all his life without finding his object at last. Mrs. Lascelles, may I not say----" In another moment she might have had the satisfaction of hearing, and perhaps repelling, a fervent declaration of attachment; but, at this juncture, the door of the boudoir was thrown open, and the announcement of "Lady Clearwell!" by James in person, ushered in an exceedingly courteous and sprightly personage, all smiles and rustle, who called Mrs. Lascelles "Rose," took her by both hands, and, with a distant bow to Sir Henry, dropped on the sofa as if she meant to make herself perfectly at home. Such interruptions are almost a matter of course. There was nothing for it but to take up his hat and make his bow.