‘True, after all!’ said Dick, half indolently. ‘I used to spoon a pretty girl up in Dublin, ride with her when I could, and dance with her at all the balls, and a certain chum of mine--a Joe Atlee--of whom you may have heard--under-took, simply by a series of artful rumours as to my future prospects--now extolling me as a man of fortune and a fine estate, to-morrow exhibiting me as a mere pretender with a mock title and mock income--to determine how I should be treated in this family; and he would say to me, “Dick, you are going to be asked to dinner on Saturday next”; or, “I say, old fellow, they’re going to leave you out of that picnic at Powerscourt. You’ll find the Clancys rather cold at your next meeting.”’ ‘And he would be right in his guess?’ ‘To the letter! Ay, and I shame to say that the young girl answered the signal as promptly as the mother.’ ‘I hope it cured you of your passion?’ ‘I don’t know that it did. When you begin to like a girl, and find that she has regularly installed herself in a corner of your heart, there is scarcely a thing she can do you’ll not discover a good reason for; and even when your ingenuity fails, go and pay a visit; there is some artful witchery in that creation you have built up about her--for I heartily believe most of us are merely clothing a sort of lay figure of loveliness with attributes of our fancy--and the end of it is, we are about as wise about our idols as the South Sea savages in their homage to the gods of their own carving.’ ‘I don’t think that!’ said Gorman sternly. ‘I could no more invent the fascination that charms me than I could model a Venus or an Ariadne.’ ‘I see where your mistake lies. You do all this, and never know you do it. Mind, I am only giving you Joe Atlee’s theory all this time; for though I believe in, I never invented it.’ ‘And who is Atlee?’ ‘A chum of mine--a clever dog enough--who, as he says himself, takes a very low opinion of mankind, and in consequence finds this a capital world to live in.’ ‘I should hate the fellow.’ ‘Not if you met him. He can be very companionable, though I never saw any one take less trouble to please. He is popular almost everywhere.’ ‘I know I should hate him.’ ‘My cousin Nina thought the same, and declared, from the mere sight of his photograph, that he was false and treacherous, and Heaven knows what else besides; and now she’ll not suffer a word in his disparagement. She began exactly as you say you would, by a strong prejudice against him. I remember the day he came down here--her manner towards him was more than distant; and I told my sister Kate how it offended me; and Kate only smiled and said, “Have a little patience, Dick.”’ ‘And you took the advice? You did have a little patience?’ ‘Yes; and the end is they are firm friends. I’m not sure they don’t correspond.’ ‘Is there love in the case, then?’