I encountered the Captain on his doorstep. He was just going out, hatted and gloved, but on seeing me he abandoned his intention. His delight was that of a child, and so manifestly genuine, so transparently sincere, that it warmed my heart. He dragged me into his sitting-room and wrung my hands again and again, expressing his pleasure in tones that made the windows rattle. One cannot help liking a man so simple and at the same time so kind. There are too many complex people in the world. He had grieved for my supposed loss more than at his own brother's death, he said, and I believed him. Very few men care much for their brothers. Then he told me all about his approaching marriage. It was to take place in five weeks and he was dreading the ordeal already. He had just finished furnishing his Wexford country house from top to bottom. They were to settle there after a honeymoon in Italy and adopt the life and manners of country magnates, only coming to town for the season. It was Miss Ottley's desire; she did not care for London smart society, it seemed, and although he did, he was quite willing to give it up or anything else indeed to please her. It was pleasant to hear him rhapsodise concerning her and to watch his happy face. Its spirit made him ten times handsomer, and although his speech was boyish it did not detract him from his exuberant virility. He was a man from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet,--a splendid animal, with just enough brains to be a force to command respect, and a heart big enough to fill the whole world with his affection. There was not a single bitter drop in the cup of his happiness. He was about to marry the woman he adored. He was enormously wealthy, and his wife-to-be was the only daughter of a millionaire. His plans for the future were Utopian. He dreamed of enlarging his estates and providing for at least the welfare of a hundred families. Wealth was given one in trust for others, he declared, and he was resolved to make every one around him happy and contented. As a wedding present to his tenants he had already ordered the rebuilding of their homes and cottages on a scale of almost lavish grandeur. Each farmhouse would be a model of luxury; each labourer's cottage would be a miniature castle with tiled walls, and hot and cold water attachments. Other landlords were annoyed with him and had not hesitated to express their resentment. He was spoiling his own tenants and making them dissatisfied, they said. But the Captain asked me with eyes aglow how could one want to keep all the good things of life to benefit a single class? It was monstrous, impossible, absurd. He only wished he could at one stroke make all the poor in the world comfortable. "You ought to hear May on the subject," he cried out in a burst of confidence. "You'd think she was a socialist. But she is only an angel." Thence he wandered to her father. Sir Robert had given up all his old stupid ways.