All that I can say about my part, is that reason did not count for a halfpenny in the business. Pride (which is often a matter of temper, or self-esteem set up to crow, but when it arises in a modest nature is the proper power to keep it sweet)--pride said to me: "I am well aware that you never stuck up for being humble. You hate any fellow that goes in for that, because you believe him a hypocrite. And so he is, ninety-nine times per cent; the one per cent being a true Christian, a quantity altogether negligible. You are not up to that mark. But you are a self-respecting Englishman. Show it, my fine fellow, by whistling at people, who have not known you better than to snub you." I listened to this, and it all seemed true, as beyond all doubt it ought to be. And I went through everything so well that Grace (who was watching me with tender interest, to learn perhaps how the Stockbroker would take it if she vanished out of his investments) did her best to be pleased for my dear sake; and yet for joint-stock sake afforded me as cold a kiss, when she said good-night, as any man insisting on the abstract woman can hope to receive from the concrete. This alone was enough to show me that I was on the wrong tack altogether. Women are delightful in their talk, if nobody contradicts them, about their finer nature, and purer standard, and higher mission to ennoble us. All this we acknowledge, and should feel it more if they said less concerning it. But the worst of it is, that if any man regards them as they demand to be regarded, he may stand with his back to the wall while they go by. Now a man, however dull-witted he may be, has sense enough to know that in any nice point touching his behaviour to the better half of life, a member of that half can show him what to do far better than he can discover it. Nothing could be clearer than that Grace despised the haughtiness and the hardness which she herself would have shown in her own case. "How her eyes would have flashed!" thought I--and then came a vision of other eyes, gentle, true, deep-hearted eyes, sad with some dark mystery perhaps, compelled to keep their tears unseen; but wavering, jiltish, deceitful--never. And then I began to recall her kindly, and found it very comforting. For when the sweet face came before me, with the soft radiance of those eyes, and the play of those lips that trembled lest they should open themselves unduly, and the movement of a heart that wondered whether it wanted itself to be understood, and a multitude of other little waverings which a man is too dull to interpret,--when all this came home to me with unknown power (because I wanted it and nothing else)--