"Delightful!" cried Mrs. Willoughby. "If I can keep my drawing-room free from insipidity, I am content. As to his walking through our conventionalities, as you term them, let him try it. If he doesn't butt his head against some rather solid walls, I'm mistaken. You don't half know what a bold thing I am doing when I invite old Houghton's son; but then it is just this kind of social temerity that enchants me, and he shall come. I only hope that some good people won't rise up and shake off the dust of their feet." "Don't worry; you're a privileged character. Mr. Clancy has told me all about it. He admires you immensely because you are so untrammelled." "He admires you a hundred-fold more. What are you going to do with him?" "I don't know. I couldn't do anything with him yet. That's his charm. If I didn't know better, I should say he was the coldest--he is not cold at all. The woman who reaches his heart will find a lot of molten lava. I'm often inclined to think it has been reached by some one else, and that his remarkable poise results from a nature fore-armed, or else chilled by a former experience. At any rate, there is a fire smouldering in his nature, and when it breaks out it won't be of the smoky, lurid sort that has so often made me ill. There will be light and heat in plenty." "Well, you're an odd girl, Caroline. You experiment with men's hearts like an old alchemist, who puts all sorts of substances into his crucible in the hope of finding something that will enrich him." "And probably, like the old alchemist, I shall never find anything except what, to me, is dross."