"No, no, dear," she said, "not you--not yourself! But this mood of yours, the way you're going on. And, true or false, isn't it what you must make Grantley think?" Sibylla moved her hands in a restless gesture, protesting against the picture of herself--even thus softened--denying its truth, fascinated by it. "I don't know," she murmured, "I don't know. Christine, it's a horrible idea!" Christine fell on her knees beside her. "If only you hadn't been so absurdly in love with him, my dear!" she whispered. CHAPTER XXII ASPIRATIONS AND COMMON SENSE Rumour spoke truly. Young Walter Blake was back in town with an entirely new crop of aspirations maturing in the ready soil of his mind. The first crop had not proved fortunate. It had brought him into a position most disagreeable and humiliating to reflect upon, and into struggles for which he felt himself little fit. He had been given time to meditate and to cool--to cool even to shuddering when he recalled that night in the Sailors' Rest, and pictured the tragedy for which he had so nearly become responsible. His old desires waning, his aspirations were transfigured at the suggestion of a new attraction. He had been on the wrong tack--that was certain. Again virtue seemed to triumph in this admission. He no longer desired to be made good--it was (as he had conceived and attempted it) such a stormy and soul-shaking process. Now he desired to be kept good. He did not now want a guiding star which he was to follow through every peril, over threatening waves and through the trough of an angry sea. The night at the Sailors' Rest disposed of that metaphor and that ideal. Now he wanted an anchor by whose help he might ride out the storm, or a harbour whose placid bosom should support his gently swaying barque. Strength, constancy, and common sense supplanted imagination, ardour, and self-devotion as the requisites his life demanded. Again Caylesham showed tact. He would not ask the lady's name. But when Blake next dined with him, he enjoyed the metamorphosis, and silently congratulated Grantley Imason. "So it's St. George's, Hanover Square, and everything quite regular this time, is it?" he asked, with an indulgent humour. "Well, I fancy you're best suited to that. Only take care!" "You may be sure that the woman I marry will be----" Blake began.