As time went on, and his fame continued to spread, he fell more and more under the gentle influence of Lady Mary Fanshaw, who was a modest, refined, and altogether charming girl. She had an unbounded admiration for Barney’s strength and manliness; and his many deeds of kindness and lavish generosity, which he himself was at no particular pains to conceal, won her deep regard. She did not pretend to understand his paintings, but was quite willing to believe what appeared to be the universal estimate, that they were works of the very highest genius. In the company of Lady Mary, Barney’s heroic determination to lead a monastic life became fainter and fainter. When Barney saw whither he was drifting, he held a serious consultation with himself. Six months had elapsed since the episode at Eastbourne, and this half year had been the most fateful in his whole existence. Even though there was a lingering disappointment over the now self-admitted fact that his life had not been wrecked, yet he felt he owed it to his dignity not to propose to Lady Mary until a year at least had intervened between the two matrimonial excursions. To propose sooner would be to admit that he did not know his own mind--and he particularly prided himself on his strength of mind. An action that is indecent haste in six months may be the epitome of calm deliberation in twelve. Instances are on record where a man’s most cherished political convictions have changed completely within a year, and a grateful country has testified its appreciation of the honesty of the transformation by bestowing a peerage or a knighthood upon the man. Why, then, should not a great painter be deeply in love with two charming girls, if a reasonable interval separated the declarations of affection? Barney said to himself that it was undoubtedly wrong to be in love with two or more at the same time, and he had to admit that in former days he had come dangerously near that complicated condition; but he was young at the time, and youth is an excuse which covers a multitude of errors. “This day six months,” said Barney, definitely, “I shall ask Lady Mary to be my wife.” Having thus reached finality in his meditations, he felt that sense of satisfaction which a man always experiences when a perplexing problem is authoritatively settled one way or another. Nothing is so demoralizing as indecision. Hitherto he had been almost afraid to meet Lady Mary, much as he delighted in her companionship; but now there was no reason why he should hold aloof from her. Therefore, having written down the date on which the momentous proposal was to take place, he arose with a joyful exuberance of spirits, and resolved to celebrate his decision by driving down to the pretty Surrey village near which Lady Mary’s father lived. The tandem was a thing of the past.