"I have never found that sons have a faculty for blushing on account of that kind of thing," Mr. Fairfax answered lightly.--"Egad, there'd be a great deal of blushing going on at some of the crack clubs if they had!" he said to himself afterwards. Clarissa rose from the seat amongst the orange-trees, and George Fairfax did not attempt to detain her. He offered her his arm to conduct her back to the ball-room; they had been quite long enough away. He did not want to attract attention; and he had said as much as he cared to say. He felt very sure of his ground now. She loved him--that was the all-important point. His wounded self-esteem was solaced by this knowledge. His old sense of power came back to him. He had felt himself all at sea, as it were, when he believed it possible that any woman he cared to win could be indifferent to him. From the other side of the ball-room Mr. Granger saw his wife re-enter arm-in-arm with George Fairfax. The sight gave him a little shock. He had hoped that young man was far enough away, ruining himself in a fashionable manner somehow; and here he was in attendance upon Clarissa. He remembered how his daughter had said that George Fairfax was sure to meet them in Paris, and his own anger at the suggestion. He would be obliged to be civil to the young man, of course. There was no reason indeed that he should be otherwise than civil--only that lurking terror in his mind, that this was the man his wife had loved. _Had_ loved? is there any past tense to that verb? Mrs. Granger dropped Mr. Fairfax's arm directly they came to a vacant seat. "I am rather tired," she said, in her coldest voice. "I think I'll rest a little, if you please. I needn't detain you. I daresay you are engaged for the next dance." "No. I seldom dance." He stood by her side. One rapid glance across the room had shown him Daniel Granger making his way towards them, looking unspeakably ponderous and British amidst that butterfly crowd. He did not mean to leave her just yet, in spite of her proprietor's approach. She belonged to him, he told himself, by right of that confession just now in the conservatory. It was only a question when he should take her to himself. He felt like some bold rover of the seas, who has just captured a gallant craft, and carries her proudly over the ocean chained to his gloomy hull. She was his, he told himself; but before he could carry her away from her present surroundings he must play the base part which he had once thought he never could play. He must be civil to Daniel Granger, mask his batteries, win his footing in the household, so that he might have easy access to the woman he loved, until one day the thunderbolt would descend, and an honest man be left desolate, "with his household gods shattered." It was just one of those sins that will not bear contemplation. George Fairfax was fain to shut his eyes upon the horror and vileness of it, and only to say to himself doggedly, "I have sworn to win her."