No; romance had never been much in his way, except the sham romance which he had assumed along with a painted face and a stage costume, and of which he knew the just and accurate value. He had never had time to fall seriously in love, he used to say to Maurice Mangan. And now, in this long spell of idleness in the North, amid these gracious surroundings, if he had had to confess that he found a singular fascination in the society of Honnor Cunyngham, why, he would have discovered a dozen reasons and excuses rather than admit that poetical sentiment had anything to do with it. For one thing, she was different from any woman he had ever met before; and that of itself piqued his curiosity. You had to speak the downright truth to her--when she looked at you with those clear hazel eyes; little make-believes of flattery were of no use at all. Her very tranquillity and isolation were a sort of challenge; her almost masculine independence was like to drive a man to say, "I am as peremptory as she proud-minded." Nevertheless, she was no curst Katherine; her temper was of the serenest; she was almost too bland and placid, Lionel thought--it showed she cared too little about you to be either exacting and petulant, or, on the other hand, solicitous to please. There came into these silent and reverie-haunted solitudes a letter from the distant and turbulent world without; and of a sudden Lionel felt himself transported back into the theatre again, in the midst of all its struggles and hopes and anxieties, its jealousies and triumphs, its ceaseless clamor and unrest. The letter was from Nina.