“The Lady Clara Vere de Vere and the clown, eh, over again? Well, I suppose it may be because I happen to be one of the rougher-looking sort myself--made of coarser clay, you know--that I cannot help having a sort of fellow-feeling for poor John. I wonder now, if I were ever to marry--and such an event is just possible, though I confess that it does not seem likely, as things stand at present,--I wonder, I was going to say, whether in that case any of you good-looking, languid swells--you fastidiously refined fellows--would be found willing to believe me capable of appreciating the charms of my own wife. Of course, it is not in the power of we ordinary mortals to make ourselves as agreeable as men who are blessed with straight noses, six feet of manhood, and wavy hair; but you might give us credit for _some_ sense of the beautiful; you really might allow that we can see and feel and love the woman whom you admire, even though nature may have cruelly denied us the gift of charming in our turn.” Arthur looked at his brother in surprise. It was very seldom that Horace, who was not of an impulsive nature, broke into so discursive a speech. He had a way--at least, so it had hitherto appeared--of taking life and the things of life so easily. Judging from the airy _insouciance_ of his words and manner, his own lack of personal attraction had never weighed upon his spirits; the giving of advice, too, whether by implication or otherwise, to his big, experienced elder brother, was so out of Horace’s line, that Arthur’s surprise at this unexpected outbreak is scarcely to be wondered at. Any relative response, however, whether in the shape of protest against, or of acquiescence in, the general truth of his brother’s remark, appeared to him to be simply impossible, and he therefore betook himself to the open field of general observation. “What a bore it is,” he said with a yawn that was not wholly the result of weariness, “that every simple thing one does gets commented on and gossiped about!” “That comes of being an elder son. One of the penalties of greatness is the bore, as you call it, of being the observed of all observers. It would be long enough before the world paid me such a compliment. Seriously, though,” he continued, glad, perhaps, of the opportunity thus afforded of passing off as a jest the sarcasms which had in a moment of irritation escaped his lips,--“seriously, though, Arthur, this strikes me as being that unpleasant thing called a ‘crisis.’ If I know anything of old Dub, he won’t let this matter rest till it’s thoroughly cleared up. He wouldn’t have written to Lady M. if he hadn’t been in earnest; and now the question is, how the deuce you are going to tackle the old fellow.”