"I am in love with Annabel Vyner. I worship none of the idols that have been set up, either by Tories or Reformers. Men who talk politics are immensely stupid. I shall marry a man who is a good fighter. Mere talkers are like barking dogs. Why don't these Reformers stop whimpering, and fly like a bull dog at the throat of their wrongs? Then I should go with them, heart and soul and purse." "You are talking now for talking's sake, Annabel. You are actually advocating civil war." "Am I really? Well, war is man's natural condition. It takes churches, and priests, and standing armies, and constables always on hand, to keep peace in any sort of fashion. We are all barbarians under our clothes,--just civilised on the top." "Such assertions are odious, and you cannot prove them." "I can. The other evening I was reading to Lord Tatham a most exquisite poem by that young man Tennyson; and he seemed to be enjoying it, until Algernon Sydney showed him his watch, and said something about 'the Black Boy.' Then his face fairly glowed, and he went off with a compliment that meant nothing. The next morning I found out 'the Black Boy' was a famous pugilist. We are all of us, in some way or other, in this mixed condition." "I think you are particularly disagreeable this morning, Miss." "Pardon, Duchess. We have fallen on a disagreeable subject. Let us change it. Are we to drive to Richmond to-day?" "If Piers will accompany us. Ay! that is his knock." She turned a radiant face to meet her son, but received a sudden chill. Piers was pale and sombre-looking; he said he had not slept, and politely declined the Richmond excursion. Annabel was sure he would. "He will have an explanation at the Athelings instead," she thought; and she waited curiously for some remark which might open the way for her confession--or else close it. But Lord Exham did not allude to his loss, and the Duchess either attached no importance to the subject, or else thought it too important to bring forward. The tone of the room was not brightened by the young lord's advent, and Annabel quickly excused herself from further attendance. "He will tell his mother when I am not there; and I shall get his opinions, with commentaries from her," she thought, as she hurried to her own rooms. Once there, she dismissed her maid, and sat down to realise herself. She doubled her little hands, and beat her knees softly with them. It was her way of summoning her mental forces, and of collecting vagrant and undecided thought.