His sisters often made a complaint against him that he never introduced any of his college friends to them—that whereas the sisters of other University men were rich in the acquaintance of Charlies and Algernons, and Freds and Toms, who were produceable at tennis parties and available for picnics at the shortest notice, they were restricted to the youths of Dorchester and a horizon bounded by the country houses of the immediate neighbourhood. Remembering these reproaches, and seeing that his friend Ramsay was obviously pining for rest and country air, Theodore suggested that he should occupy the bachelor’s room in Cornhill as long as he could venture to stop away from hospitals and lectures and scientific investigations. “You want a long fallow, Cuthbert,” he said, “and you couldn’t have a better lotus island than Dorchester. There’s not an excitement or a feverish sensation to be had within twenty miles, and then I really want to make you known to my cousin, Lord Cheriton. He is a very clever man—an all-round man—and he would be interested in you and all that you are doing.” “I shall be proud of knowing him. And then there is your cousin, Lady Carmichael. I am deeply interested in her, without having ever seen her face, and when I do see her——” “You will say she is one of the loveliest women you ever saw in your life, Cuthbert. I have no doubt of that. You will see her beauty under a cloud, for she is not one of those women who begin to get over the loss of a husband as soon as their crape gets rusty; but her beauty is all the more touching on account of the grief that separates her from all other women—even from her past self. I sometimes look at her and wonder if this sad and silent woman can be the Juanita I once knew; the light-hearted, spontaneous girl, a buoyant creature, all impulse and caprice, fancy and imagination.” “You may be sure that I shall admire her, and you may be sure I shall not forget that there is some one whose admiration has a deeper root than the lust of the eye and the fancy of the moment.” Theodore would not affect to misunderstand him. It was not possible that he could have talked of his cousin in the freedom of friendship without having revealed his secret to his friend. “My dear fellow,” he said with a sigh, “mine is a hopeless case. You will know that it is so when you see Juanita and me together. Her mother said to me on the first day of this year, ‘If ever she comes to care for anybody it will be some new person;’ and I have not the least doubt that her mother was right. Her first love was her playfellow, the companion of her girlhood. A woman cannot have two such loves. Her second attachment, if she ever make one, will be of a totally different character.”