Vane must have clenched his hands at this point; for he felt a decided pricking in his left forefinger. And he observed several thorns on the stem of the rose she had given him. For she had given him a rose. That much favor had been shown him. He got into his mother's little phaeton and drove home--with his rose. So far, his investments in life had not been successful. The account with fortune might read somewhat like this--Debtor, an English girl: to ten years' love and an indefinite amount of devotion and sentiment. Creditor, by the English girl: one rose (with thorns). That is, if he had put the Dr. and Cr. sides right. He never could remember which was which. At all events, the returns on his investment were not large. And he, with his uncertainty about debtor and creditor, to think of competing with the practical Yankee of Bellefontaine! No; he would leave his four thousand a year where it was--a somewhat insignificant part of the national debt. Meantime, what would become of him? What should he do? He felt an idle outsider's curiosity to know what the deuce he _would_ do. Of one thing he felt certain, his orbit in life would be highly eccentric. He had no _raison d'être_; and it is difficult to predict the direction taken by a body without _raison d'être_. The curve of such a comet has no equation. He could no longer view life with gravity; and it is quite impossible to calculate the orbit of a body without gravity. He might bring up anywhere from Orion to the Great Bear. Only one thing was certain--he could not, for the present, bring up in Switzerland; and yet, oddly enough, that seemed to be the only part of any possible terrestrial orbit that had an attraction. But attraction decreases as the square of the distance. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that he was now two miles from her, and loved her with his whole heart; if he were twelve thousand miles away, he would love her only one divided by the square of six thousand--only one thirty-six-millionth part as much. In other words, he would have thirty-five million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine thirty-six millionths of his heart left--left to bestow upon the dusky beauties of the Pacific. Damn the dusky beauties of the Pacific. He would see his sister Mary. After all, she was dearer to him than the dusky beauties of the Pacific could possibly be.