"Oh, that's true!" cried the Duchess--"so dreadfully true! But what's the good of preaching? We shall go on spending it to the end of time." "Well, at any rate, don't choose the dummies and the frauds." "Ah, there you talk sense," said the Duchess. "And if only we had the French system in England! If only one could say to Julie: 'Now look here, _there's_ your husband! It's all settled--down to plate and linen--and you've _got_ to marry him!' how happy we should all be." Dr. Meredith stared. "You have the man in your eye," he said. The Duchess hesitated. "Suppose you come a little walk with me in the wood," she said, at last, gathering up her white skirts. Meredith obeyed her. They were away for half an hour, and when they returned the journalist's face, flushed and furrowed with thought, was not very easy to read. Nor was his temper in good condition. It required a climb to the very top of Monte Crocione to send him back, more or less appeased, a consenting player in the Duchess's game. For if there are men who are flirts and egotists--who ought to be, yet never are, divined by the sensible woman at a glance--so also there are men too well equipped for this wicked world, too good, too well born, too desirable. It was in this somewhat flinty and carping mood that Meredith prepared himself for the advent of Jacob Delafield. * * * * * But when Delafield appeared, Meredith's secret antagonisms were soon dissipated. There was certainly no challenging air of prosperity about the young man. At first sight, indeed, he was his old cheerful self, always ready for a walk or a row, on easy terms at once with the Italian servants or boatmen. But soon other facts emerged--stealthily, as it were, from the concealment in which a strong man was trying to keep them. "That young man's youth is over," said Meredith, abruptly, to the Duchess one evening. He pointed to the figure of Delafield, who was pacing, alone with his pipe, up and down one of the lower terraces of the garden. The Duchess showed a teased expression. "It's like something wearing through," she said, slowly. "I suppose it was always there, but it didn't show." "Name your 'it.'" "I can't." But she gave a little shudder, which made Meredith look at her with curiosity. "You feel something ghostly--unearthly?" She nodded assent; crying out, however, immediately afterwards, as though in compunction, that he was one of the dearest and best of fellows. "Of course he is," said Meredith. "It is only the mystic in him coming out. He is one of the men who have the sixth sense." "Well, all I know is, he has the oddest power over people," said Evelyn, with another shiver. "If Freddie had it, my life wouldn't be worth living. Thank goodness, he hasn't a vestige!" "At bottom it's the power of the priest," said Meredith. "And you women are far too susceptible towards it. Nine times out of ten it plays the mischief."