For long time he has loved her,--has lived with only her image in his heart. Yet what has his devotion gained him? Her liking, her regard, no doubt, but nothing that can satisfy the longing that leaves desolate his faithful heart. Regard, however deep, is but small comfort to him whose every thought, waking and sleeping, belongs alone to her. "Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride, What hell it is, in swing long to bide; To loose good dayes that might be better spent, To wast long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires." He is quite assured she lives in utter ignorance of his love. No word has escaped him, no smallest hint, that might declare to her the passion that daily, hourly, grows stronger, and of which she is the sole object. "The noblest mind the best contentment has," and he contents himself as best he may on a smile here, a gentle word there, a kindly pressure of the hand to-day, a look of welcome to-morrow. These are liberally given, but nothing more. Ever since her engagement to Horace Branscombe he has, of course, relinquished hope; but the surrender of all expectation has not killed his love. He is silent because he must be so, but his heart wakes, and "Silence in love bewrays more woe Than words, though ne'er so witty." "See, there they are again," he says now, alluding to Georgie and her ducal companion, as they emerge from behind some thick shrubs. Another man is with them, too,--a tall, gaunt young man, with long hair, and a cadaverous face, who is staring at Georgie as though he would willingly devour her--but only in the interest of art. He is lecturing on the "Consummate Daffodil," and is comparing it unfavorably with the "Unutterable Tulip," and is plainly boring the two, with whom he is walking, to extinction. He is Sir John Lincoln, that old-new friend of Georgie's, and will not be shaken off. "Long ago," says Georgie, tearfully, to herself, "he was not an æsthete. Oh, how I _wish_ he would go back to his pristine freshness!" But he won't: he maunders on unceasingly about impossible flowers, that are all very well in their way, but whose exaltedness lives only in his own imagination, until the duke, growing weary (as well he might, poor soul), turns aside, and greets with unexpected cordiality a group upon his right, that, under any other less oppressive circumstances, would be abhorrent to him. But to spend a long hour talking about one lily is not to be borne. Georgie follows his example, and tries to escape Lincoln and the tulips by diving among the aforesaid group. She is very successful,--groups do not suit æsthetics,--and soon the gaunt young man takes himself, and his long hair, to some remote region.