"I fancy I know them better than he does. Miss Di is young, but she is uncommonly well aware of her own value, and she is looking higher. I should not wonder if she tried to marry you. She'll take him in five years' time, if he is still willing, and she outstands her market: but in the mean time she keeps him dangling. I told him so, and that I admired her for it. She holds her head high, but she is a splendid creature, and no mistake. She has not that expectant anxious look about her that you see in other girls, and she is not made up. It's sterling good looks in her case. If you are interested in that quarter, you may take my word for it, it is all genuine, even to her hair. That is why her frank manner is so telling; it's of a piece with the rest. She knows how to play her cards. The old woman has taught her a thing or two." "What a knowledge you have of--human nature." "I have looked about," said Lord Frederick, rising as gently as he had sat down, and pulling up his shirt collar. "I had my eyes opened pretty young, and I have kept them open ever since. Glad you're better. That black devil in tights of a poodle wants shaving as much as you did last time I saw you. No, don't ring for that melancholy valet. I will let myself out. I dare say I shall be in again in the course of a day or two. Ta, ta." John crushed the telegram he was still holding into a hard ball as soon as his self-constituted guide, philosopher, and friend had left the room. Cynicism was not new to him. It is cheap enough to be universally appropriated by the poor in spirit, for whom generosity and tolerance are commodities too expensive to be indulged in. Our belief in human nature is a foot rule, by which we may be accurately measured ourselves. There are those in whose enlightened eyes, purity herself is only a courtesan in fancy dress. John had already had many teachers, for he was a man who was being educated regardless of expense; but perhaps to no two persons did he owe so much as to Mr. Goodwin and Lord Frederick Fane. Our elders act as danger-signals oftener than they know.