But while Harry, full of lawless and uncontrollable impulses, had a stormy and untried future before him, in which he was to be obliged to work hard for all his successes, Jack's seemed a dazzling vista of prosperity and ease. He was already engaged to the girl he loved; he was the only son of a man whose wealth was enormous; and while the rest of us were to be hungrily gazing into the world's windows with our cold hands in our empty pockets, he was calmly to take the prettiest girl we knew by the hand and lead her away into a fairyland whose glories we might only guess at. But he took all his prospects very quietly: not even for the sake of love did he neglect his work. He rarely spoke of Georgy, and I knew that it would never be his fault to illuminate with too bright a glare the sweet mysteries of the love that must lie between them. I saw him sometimes writing to her with her picture before him. "What do you suppose he writes about?" Harry used to ask me on such occasions. "She cares little enough about fine sentiments, even if he were given to that sort of thing; and I can't believe that he is very ostentatious in declaring his passion. I don't think she will ever pass that criticism upon his epistles that some old party did upon a pudding: 'Too many plums and not enough suet.' I confess I cannot guess how he contrives to fill his six regulation pages." "I don't see that it concerns us, at all events." "Very true. But she would show me his letters if I asked her to. I wonder how Jack likes a certain ease she has in other men's society? What claws are to a cat, what the sting is to the bee, what its poison is to the upas tree, coquetry is to Georgy Lenox. I wish him joy of her, but wash my hands of the engagement." He spoke with some heat, which was his wont in every allusion to Jack's love-affair. But I knew that Harry had a dozen flirtations on hand, and the fatalest effect of the false is its power of destroying our delicate and just perception of the true. CHAPTER IX.