"The fair sex should be grateful that they share your attention with horses and billiards," she returned. "But what else do you do, Captain Langton? I was not thinking of such trifles as these." "Trifles!" he repeated. "I do not call horse racing a trifle. I was within an inch of winning the Derby--I mean to say a horse of mine was. If you call that a trifle, Miss Darrell, you go near to upsetting English society altogether." "But what great things do you do?" she repeated, her dark eyes opening wider. "You cannot mean seriously that this is all. Do you never write, paint--have you no ambition at all?" "I do not know what you call ambition," he replied, sullenly; "as for writing and painting, in England we pay people to do that kind of thing for us. You do not think that I would paint a picture, even if I could?" "I should think you clever if you did that," she returned; "at present I cannot see that you do anything requiring mind or intellect." "Miss Darrell," he said, looking at her, "you are a radical, I believe." "A radical?" she repeated, slowly. "I am not quite sure, Captain Langton, that I know what that means." "You believe in aristocracy of intellect, and all that kind of nonsense," he continued. "Why should a man who paints a picture be any better than the man who understands the good points of a horse?" "Why, indeed?" she asked, satirically. "We will not argue the question, for we should not agree." "I had her there," thought the captain. "She could not answer me. Some of these women require a high hand to keep them in order." "I do not see Miss Hastings," she said at last, "and it is quite useless going to the aviary without her. I do not remember the name of a single bird; and I am sure you will not care for them." "But," he returned, hesitatingly, "Sir Oswald seemed to wish it." "There is the first dinner-bell," she said, with an air of great relief; "there will only just be time to return. As you seem solicitous about Sir Oswald's wishes we had better go in, for he dearly loves punctuality." "I believe," thought the captain, "that she is anxious to get away from me. I must say that I am not accustomed to this kind of thing." The aspect of the dining-room, with its display of fine old plate, the brilliantly arranged tables, the mingled odor of rare wines and flowers, restored him to good humor. "It would be worth some little trouble," he thought, "to win all this." He took Pauline in to dinner. The grand, pale, passionate beauty of the girl had never shown to greater advantage than it did this evening, as she sat with the purple and crimson fuchsias in her hair and the broken lily in her belt. Sir Oswald did not notice the latter until dinner was half over. Then he said: "Why, Pauline, with gardens and hothouses full of flowers, have you chosen a broken one?" "To me it is exquisite," she replied.