The tone she adopted was one of commonplace, good-humoured kindliness. But her breathing had quickened a little, and her face had lost some of its high colour in the excitement of thus abruptly coming to grips with her subject. He stared a moment blankly, then shrugged and laughed. “Excellent advice,” said he, still laughing on a note of derision that obviously was aimed at himself. “Find me a lady who is well endowed and yet so little fastidious in her tastes that she could make shift with such a husband as I should afford her, and the thing is done.” “Now there I vow you do yourself injustice.” “Faith, it’s a trick I’ve learnt from others.” “You are, when all is said, a very proper man.” “Aye! But proper for what?” She pursued her theme without pausing to answer his frivolous question. “And there’s many a woman of substance who needs a man to care for her and guard her--such a man as yourself, Colonel; one who knows his world and commands a worthy place in it.” “I command that, do I? On my soul you give me news of myself.” “If ye don’t command it, it is that ye lack the means, perhaps. But the place is yours by right.” “By what right, good hostess?” “By the right of your birth and breeding and military rank, which is plain upon you. Sir, why will you be undervaluing yourself? The means that would enable you to take your proper place would be provided by the wife who would be glad to share it with you.” He shook his head, and laughed again. “Do you know of such a lady?” She paused before replying, pursing her full lips, pretending to consider, that thus she might dissemble her hesitation. There was more in that hesitation than either of them could have come near imagining. Indeed, his whole destiny was in it. Upon such light things do human fates depend that had she now taken the plunge, and offered herself as she intended--instead of some ten days later, as eventually happened--although his answer would have varied nothing from what it ultimately was, yet the whole stream of his life would have been diverted into other channels, and his story might never have been worth telling. Because her courage failed her at this moment, Destiny pursued the forging of that curious chain of circumstance which it is my task to reveal to you link by link. “I think,” she said slowly at last, “that I should not be sorely put to it to find her. I ... I should not have far to seek.”