“That the woman you attacked was worthy, was a mere chance. For all you knew and hoped she was the worst of her sex. And for this I was thrown aside. I will be frank with you, my Lord. It wounded my pride and I thought ’twas my heart but could not tell. You have offered yourself to another and was rejected— Why should I spare you now? And yet, remembering the past,—indeed I scarce could tell. I was resolved therefore that I would see you and hear your protestations that I might judge whether ’twas the one or the other. I know at last. My pride was hurt, but never my heart.” He gazed at her transfixed. ’Twas the first time in his life he had seen the lady in earnest. It could not but appear extraordinary to him that a creature so airy, so sparkling—let us say so trifling, should now assume a superiority he must needs acknowledge. His silence gave her the final opportunity, and she spoke once more. “So my Lord, we part. We shall meet often, but yet we part for ever. I thank you that you showed me what you really was, for I have now nothing to regret. I am saved from an unhappy marriage. You are no respecter of women, and deserve my scorn.” He summoned himself for the defensive. The lady must not carry off all the honours of war from my Lord Baltimore. “My dear creature—what is there to respect in them, I ask your sincerity? Here’s yourself has trained me on to make a declaration that you might quote to the town that I was at your feet and you spurned me. Indeed I have not much cause to honour your sex.” “Fear not. I shall not quote it to the town, my Lord, for I don’t feel it a distinction,”—says the lady coolly. “I would not have it known that the Grand Bashaw believed he might throw me the handkerchief when another had refused to stoop for it. No,—the comedy we have played is over—here is the epilogue. You may find a slave, but never a wife, and your contempt of my sex shows an ignorance that deserves no better. There are few women but might despise you if they knew your worth and their own.” She rose, performed a magnificent curtsey and left her Adam to an Eve-less Paradise. Rage and unbelief struggled in my Lord Baltimore’s mind. Rejected a second time and where most he thought himself secure! It appeared an evil dream from which he must presently waken though the lights shone and music filled the air and the faces of men and women known to him passed the retreat where he sat alone in a very fever of thoughts he never supposed possible for his triumphant self. Sooner than be remarked, he rose presently and went out into the near dancing room where the first to catch his eye was my Lady Fanny with his master the Prince of Wales. The Prince laughed heartily in answer to somewhat she said, and my Lord could hear his words:—