“Ah, Lady Florencecourt!” exclaimed George hastily and deprecatingly, forgetting ordinary civility in horror at this comparison between Nouna and a lady who was, without perhaps any clearly specified reason, the bogey of all her acquaintance. The Colonel was not at all annoyed; he gave a little quick shake of the head, and burst out with abrupt vehemence-- “By Jove, Lady Florencecourt’s an angel of light compared to----” Suddenly, without any warning, he pulled himself up short, and added after a second’s pause, in a milder and more reserved tone--“compared to some of the specimens I have known.” Lauriston glanced at him in surprise. He would have rather liked to know something about the “specimen” or “specimens” who had made the fiery little Colonel a woman-hater, and caused that obnoxious woman, Lady Florencecourt, to appear an ideal wife in his eyes. But the elder man’s burst of confidence was over. He proceeded to ask in a dry tone--“You have quite made up your mind to treat my advice as advice is usually treated, I suppose?” “You are rather hard upon me, Colonel. You do me the honour to say I have brains, but you take it for granted that I haven’t used them. I’ve been on the rack between my thoughts and my feelings ever since I found out I loved this girl, and I’ve puzzled out for myself some sort of plan to live upon.” “And what’s that? To ‘give her the key of your heart,’ I suppose, and make her ‘the sharer of your thoughts and feelings.’” “I should be sorry to have a wife that wasn’t!” The Colonel stopped with a short laugh, and looked at him with half-closed eyes and hard-set mouth. “Well, try it!” said he raspingly; and with a half-mocking salute he turned round and went rapidly off by the way they had come.