Seeing the old man thus indulgent, Lucius assured himself that he could have formed no other views about his granddaughter; since, as Lucius himself thought, it would naturally occur to him that he, Lucius, must needs fall madly in love with her. He felt all the more secure upon this point since he had so long been a constant visitor at Cedar House, and had met no one there who could pretend to Miss Sivewright’s favour. A snuffy old dealer had been once or twice closeted with Mr. Sivewright, but that was all. And however base a tyrant Lucille’s grandfather might be, he could scarcely contemplate bestowing his lovely grandchild upon an old man in a shabby coat, who presented himself on the threshold of the parlour with an abject air, and brought some object of art or virtu wrapped in a blue-cotton handkerchief for the connoisseur’s inspection. So the year grew older, and Lucius Davoren looked out upon a new existence, cheered by new hopes, and happy thoughts which went with him through the long days of toil, and whispered to his soul in the pauses of his studious nights. Even the hideous memory of what went before his illness in America—that night in the pine-forest, that winter dusk when the wicked face looked in at his window, when the wolfish eyes glared at him for the last time, save in his dreams—even that dread picture faded somewhat, and he could venture to meditate calmly upon the details of that tragedy, and say to himself, ‘The blood I shed yonder was justly shed.’ CHAPTER VI. ‘BY HEAVEN, I LOVE THEE BETTER THAN MYSELF.’ While Lucius dreamed his dream beside the wharf where the barges lay moored under the smoky London sky, Geoffrey was following his siren from one provincial town to another, not without some enjoyment in the chase, which filled his empty life with some kind of object, no matter though it were a foolish one. Given youth, health, activity, and a handsome income, there yet remains something wanting to a man’s existence, without which it is apt to become more or less a burden to him. That something is a purpose. Geoffrey having failed—from very easiness of temper, from being everybody’s favourite, first in every pleasure-party, foremost in every sport that needed pluck and endurance, rather than from lack of ability—to achieve distinction at the University, had concluded that he was fit for nothing particular in life; that he had no vocation, no capacity for distinguishing himself from the ruck of his fellow men; and that the best thing he could do was to live upon the ample fortune his merchant father had amassed for him, and get as much pleasure as he could out of life.