"Humph! Nothing at this moment! You manage things so badly, you might get me into a scrape. I never do anything which the law or the police, or even the news papers, can get hold of. I must think of some other way--humph! I never give up what I once commence, and I never fail in what I undertake! If life had been worth what fools trouble it with-- business and ambition--I suppose I should have been a great man with a very bad liver--ha ha! I alone, of all the world, ever found out what the world was good for! Draw the curtains, Dykeman." CHAPTER VII. "_Org._ Welcome, thou ice that sitt'st about _his_ heart No heat can ever thaw thee!"--FORD: _Broken Heart_. "_Nearch._ Honourable infamy!"--Ibid. "_Amye._ Her tenderness hath yet deserved no rigour, So to be crossed by fate!" "_Arm._ You misapply, sir, With favour let me speak it, what Apollo Hath clouded in dim sense!"--Ibid. If Vaudemont had fancied that, considering the age and poverty of Simon, it was his duty to see whether Fanny's not more legal, but more natural protector were, indeed, the unredeemed and unmalleable egotist which Gawtrey had painted him, the conversation of one night was sufficient to make him abandon for ever the notion of advancing her claims upon Lord Lilburne. But Philip had another motive in continuing his acquaintance with that personage. The sight of his mother's grave had recalled to him the image of that lost brother over whom he had vowed to watch. And, despite the deep sense of wronged affection with which he yet remembered the cruel letter that had contained the last tidings of Sidney, Philip's heart clung with undying fondness to that fair shape associated with all the happy recollections of childhood; and his conscience as well as his love asked him, each time that he passed the churchyard, "Will you make no effort to obey that last prayer of the mother who consigned her darling to your charge?" Perhaps, had Philip been in want, or had the name he now bore been sullied by his conduct, he might have shrunk from seeking one whom he might injure, but could not serve. But though not rich, he had more than enough for tastes as hardy and simple as any to which soldier of fortune ever limited his desires. And he thought, with a sentiment of just and noble pride, that the name which Eugenie had forced upon him had been borne spotless as the ermine through the trials and vicissitudes he had passed since he had assumed it. Sidney could give him nothing, and therefore it was his duty to seek Sidney out. Now, he had always believed in his heart that the Beauforts were acquainted with a secret which he more and more pined to penetrate. He would, for Sidney's sake, smother his hate to the Beauforts; he would not reject their acquaintance if thrown in his way; nay, secure in his change of name and his altered features, from all suspicion on their part, he