Outside, pacing up and down the long avenue, whose grand old chestnuts were the boast of the country-side, things certainly looked more attractive. "It _is_ a beautiful old place," said Beauchamp, stopping suddenly, and looking about him appreciatively, "though the house is desperately ugly. It looks as if it had been cut out of the middle of a street and stuck down here in this beautiful park by mistake. And the portico looks as if it, again, had nothing whatever to do with the house. I hate those great pillars so!--they look so meaningless. When was this house built, Gertrude, do you know?" "Quite recently--that is to say, at the end of the last century," said Gertrude, "when everything was hideous. The old house was very picturesque; more like an enlarged edition of Winsley. Still, this house is a very _good_ one, Beauchamp. Some of the rooms--the drawing-rooms--are very fine." "Oh yes, it's well enough inside. No doubt it might be made very habitable," replied her brother, indifferently. Then, with an effort, "What is it you want to say to me, Gertrude? Oh yes, by-the-bye, I remember. I was saying just now I did not quite understand your allusions to my future--to something you had had in your mind about it." "I did not intend to say it," replied Gertrude; "it was only accidentally I said what I did. Of course you must see what I mean-- what a bright future of assured comfort and ease, whatever happens or does not happen here, would be before you if you chose." "Yes, I see what you mean now," answered Beauchamp. "There is no use beating about the bush, Gertrude. Once for all I tell you plainly that if I hadn't a halfpenny in the world I could not marry Adelaide. I could not stand her a week. I should run away from her, and then where should we all be? No, truly, if any idea of this kind has increased your opposition to my marrying elsewhere I beg you to dismiss it. _That_ I never could have done." Gertrude sighed. "You do not yourself know what you would or would not have done had there been no other influences about you, Beauchamp. I don't understand you. First there was Roma, now, barely two months after that was made an end of, you want me to approve of your engaging yourself to another girl. You are very changeable and inconsistent." Beauchamp had had a second thought about the expediency of quarrelling with his sister. So, though her accusation annoyed him, as he felt she had some grounds for making it, he kept down his vexation and answered quietly-- "I am sorry to have appeared so to you. As regards Roma, I own that I quite see now that that was a mistake from the beginning; the less said about it the better. "As regards my present engagement--" he hesitated. "No, Gertrude, I don't expect you as yet to _approve_ of it, but I hope you may do so in time. Wait till you see Eugenia."