She looked at him with a good deal of surprise, and a frown puckered her smooth brow. "Why not? Why should we wish for rhapsodies and commonplace love-making? We can leave all that to the Chloes and Daphnes of a by-gone age. It would be boring to the last degree. One must take pleasure just as much as sorrow, with a certain amount of equanimity. If there is one thing more than another that I hate, it is to be ruffled. Emotion of any sort ages a girl so terribly." The sword would never wear out the scabbard so far as Lady Ethel was concerned! He doubted if she were capable of any great depth of feeling. But he did not say now as he would have done a week ago--"So much the better;" he no longer felt that it was altogether desirable. He looked at her more scrutinisingly than he had ever done before, and for the first time he told himself that the beautifully moulded mouth was hard and unloving, and that the chin spoke of self-will and an amount of resolution unusual in such a young girl. He hastened to change the subject. "You would like to visit Switzerland or Italy?" he asked. "No; I don't care for scenery much, or nature! I like human nature best; it is much more interesting, I consider. I should prefer Paris or Vienna." "Then Paris or Vienna let it be, by all means," he hastened to reply, and Lady Ethel smiled, well pleased. "Mamma," said Sir John's _fiancee_ an hour or two later, when mother and daughter were alone. "Do you know who Mrs. Chetwynd was?" "My dear Ethel, it is much better that subject should not be discussed." "I don't agree with you. Since I am going to marry John it can only be right and proper that I should be made aware of every detail connected with his former marriage." When Lady Ethel adopted that tone, her mother knew by past experience that it was a saving of time and temper to yield. "I only know that she was beneath him in position--a dancer, I believe, and she ran away with someone else. Really providential, I consider; it must have been a happy release for poor Sir John." "He was plain Mr. Chetwynd." "Yes; but already very popular. It was exceedingly fortunate that he did not get his baronetcy earlier, for had he done so, she would probably have refused to be faithless." "I wonder if he felt her desertion much?" "The world says not; they had lived unhappily for some time before, and the general impression was that he did not care in the least." "But you spoke of her to him when he asked your consent to our marriage?" "Yes, Ethel, I did; I referred to it as delicately as possible, of course. I believe I said, 'your early misfortune,' or something to that effect." "And what did he say?" "Well, he spoke very nicely; he said he was aware that it added to the disparity between a man in his position and my daughter." "And you?"