Mr. St. Paul stayed to dinner that day, being invited by Money without ceremony, and accepting the invitation in the easiest way. Victor Heron declined to remain. The family and Minola, with Mr. St. Paul, made up the party. St. Paul was very attentive to Mrs. Money, who appeared to be delighted with him. He talked all through the dinner--he hardly ever stopped; he had an adventure in Texas, or in Mexico, or in the South Sea Islands, _apropos_ of everything; he seemed equally pleased whether his listeners believed or disbelieved his stories, and he talked of his own affairs with a cool frankness, as if he was satisfied that all the world must know everything about him, and that he might as well speak bluntly out. He could not be called cynical in manner, for cynicism presupposes a sort of affectation, a defiance, or a deliberate _pose_ of some kind, and St. Paul seemed absolutely without affectation--completely self-satisfied and easy. Victor had spoken of him as "a rowdy--that's all." But that was not all. He was--if such a phrase could be tolerated--a "gentleman rowdy." His morals and his code of honor seemed to be those of a Mexican horse-stealer, and yet anybody must have known that he was by birth and early education an English gentleman. "I don't think I know a soul about town," he said. "I looked in at the club once or twice--always kept up my subscription there during my worst of times--and I didn't see a creature I could recollect. I dare say the people who know my brother won't care to know me. I did leave such a deuce of a reputation behind me; and they'll all be sure to think I haven't got a red cent--a penny, I mean. There they are mistaken. Somehow the money-making gift grows on you out West." "Why don't you settle down?" Money asked. "Get into Parliament, marry, range yourself, and all that--make up with your brother and be all right. You have plenty of time before you yet." "My good fellow, what do you call plenty of time? Look at me--I'm as bald as if I were a judge." "Oh, bald! that's nothing. Everybody is bald nowadays." "But I'm thirty-five! Thirty-five--think of that, young ladies! a grizzled, grim old fogey--what is it Thackeray says?--all girls know Thackeray--who on earth would marry me? My brother and his wife have given me such a shockingly bad character. Some of it I deserved, perhaps; some of it I didn't. They think I have disgraced the family name, I dare say. What did the family name do for me I should like to know? Out in Texas we didn't care much about family names." "I entirely agree with your view of things, Mr. St. Paul," Mrs. Money said in her soft melancholy tone. "England is destroyed by caste and class. I honor a man of family who has the spirit to put away such ideas."