"For me? Yes, indeed. When first you knew me I was the most insignificant person among us at home, and now I think I have all I ever wished for." Sir Mark smiles. "I never heard any one say that before. Of what use will the Deacon's Well be to you? Do you mean to tell me you have no wish left ungratified?" "Well, perhaps there are a few things I would willingly put out of my way," I reply, with a faint recurrence in my own mind to Lady Blanche Going. "Only things? You are unfortunate. When I go in for that useless sort of wishing, it is for people--not _things_--I would have removed. Were I you, Mrs. Carrington, I believe I should live in a perpetual state of terror, waiting for some blow to fall to crush such excessive happiness. You know one cannot be prosperous forever." "I never anticipate evil," return I, lightly. "Surely it is bad enough when it comes, without adding to it by being miserable beforehand. Why, how doleful you look? What is it? You remind me of some youthful swain in love for the first time in his life." "Perhaps I am." "In love? How amusing! With whom then? Bebe? Dora? Or some person or persons unknown? Come, surely you may confide with all safety in your hostess." "She is the last person I would choose as a confidante on this occasion. The sympathy she would accord me would be very scanty." "Oh, how unjust! Have I proved myself so utterly heartless? And is sympathy so very needful in your case--is it a hopeless one?" "Quite so." "Poor Sir Mark! 'If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be?' is a very good motto: why not adopt it, and--love again? I have heard there is nothing easier." "Would you find it easy?" "I don't know, having never tried. But if the love is to be unhappy, I wonder people ever let themselves fall into the snare." "You speak as if you yourself were free from the gentle passion," says Sir Mark, with a searching look, under which I color and feel somewhat confused. "We were talking of second lovers," I say, hurriedly. "One hears of them. I was advising you to turn your attention that way. Surely it would be possible." "I don't believe in it; at least to me it would be impossible," replies Sir Mark, in a low tone, and silence falls upon me. Once again I am in the ball-room at Strangemore, listening to a tale of early love. Is Sir Mark thinking of Marmaduke now, I wonder, and the story he then told me, of his old infatuation for his cousin Blanche? Was it more than an infatuation, a passing fancy? Was it an honest, lasting attachment? And have I secured but the tired, worn-out remnant of a once strong passion? My changeful spirits, so prone to rise, so easy to dash to earth, again forsake me. Discontented and uncertain, I sit with lowered lids and fretful, puckered brow. "Do you, then, think a man can love but once in his life?" I force myself to ask, though with open hesitation.