“I will. I saw nothing of the marvellous sights you appear to have witnessed, but I saw something which you did not, or at least not in the same way. That little black-haired girl’s eyes are the eyes of a woman who is born to be a coquette--perhaps something more; and who can no more help looking up into the eyes of every man she meets with a look that draws out his soul and his senses and leaves him a mere automaton to be moved by her as she pleases than fire can help burning, or the spider help spinning his thread.” “I will never believe it. You may have had thirty years’ more experience than I; but, by Jove, where a woman is concerned, one man’s guess is as good as another’s. And I am quite as firmly convinced that the child is an innocent and good little girl as you are that she is the contrary. I know it, I am sure of it; as I held her in my arms----” “Ah!” interrupted the doctor. “Wrapping my coat about her to put out the flames,” continued Lauriston hastily, “I looked at her face, and was quite touched by its helpless, childlike expression of innocence.” “And will it take my thirty years of extra experience to teach you that to hold a woman in your arms is not a judicial attitude?” Lauriston was silent. Emboldened by the knowledge that the doctor did not even know his name, and was by no means likely to meet him again, he had allowed himself to talk more freely than he would otherwise have done to a stranger. In the ferment of emotions he was in, however, the older man’s drily cynical tone seemed to him satanic. He was by this time, therefore, quite as anxious to leave the doctor, as the latter could possibly be to get rid of him. He was raising his hat for a rather reserved and abrupt leave-taking, when Dr. Bannerman stopped him with a good-humoured touch on his arm. “Now what have I done that you should give me my dismissal like that? Merely told you what your own good sense--for you’re a Scotchman I know by your accent, though it’s far enough from a canny Scot you’ve been to-night--will tell you in the morning. Set your affections on a blue-eyed lassie among the hills, or on a prim little English miss; she may not be quite so warm to you as a little southern baggage would be, but then she’ll be colder to other people, and that restores the balance to your advantage. Now, I shall probably never see you again, so we may as well part good friends; and for goodness’” (the doctor said something stronger than this) “for goodness’ sake think over my advice. It’s ten times better than any physic I ever prescribed.” He held out his hand, which Lauriston shook warmly. “Thank you, doctor. I’m not a Scotchman, though I was brought up among the heather. You’re right. Your prescription is a very good one, and I’ll take as much of the dose as--as I can swallow.” And in a moment he was striding down the street.