This session he had come out a little, and made two speeches of real promise. The minister had complimented his uncle upon them, and had also complimented him. The muse was there; something original and above routine--genius perhaps--and that passion for distinction which breaks a poor man's heart, and floats the rich to greatness. A man of Cleve's years, with his position, with his promise, with London life and Paris life all learned by rote, courted and pursued, wary, contemptuous, sensual, clever, ambitious--is not young. The whole chaperon world, with its wiles, was an open book for him. For him, like the man in the German legend, the earth under which they mined and burrowed had grown to his eyes transparent, and he saw the gnomes at work. For him young ladies' smiles were not light and magic--only marsh fires and tricks. To him old and young came up and simpered or fawned; but they dimpled, or ogled, or grinned, all in the Palace of Truth. Truth is power, but not always pretty. For common men the surface is best; all beyond is knowledge--an acquisition of sorrow. Therefore, notwithstanding his years, the clear olive oval of his handsome face, the setting--void of line or colour--of those deep dark eyes, so enthusiastic, yet so cold, the rich wave of his dark hair, and the smooth transparency of temples and forehead, and all the tints and signs of beautiful youth, Cleve Verney was well stricken in years of knowledge; and of that sad gift he would not have surrendered an iota in exchange for the charms and illusions of innocence, so much for the most part do men prefer power to happiness. "How d'ye do, Miss Oldys?" said this brilliant young man of actualities and expectations. "Oh, Mr. Verney, _you_ here!" This Miss Caroline Oldys was just nine-and-twenty. Old, like him, in the world's dismal psychology, but with one foolish romance still at her heart; betrayed into a transient surprise, smiling in genuine gladness, almost forgetting herself, and looking quite country-girlish in the momentary effusion. It is not safe affecting an emotion with men like Cleve, especially when it does not flatter them. He did not care a farthing whether she was surprised or not, or glad or sorry. But her very eye and gesture told him that she had marked him as he stood there, and had chosen the very seat on which her partner had placed her of malice aforethought. Fine acting does it need to succeed with a critic like Cleve. "Yes, I here--and where's the wonder?" "Why,--who was it?--_some_ one told me only half an hour ago, you were somewhere in France." "Well, if it was a man he told a story, and if a lady she made a mistake," said Cleve, coolly but tartly, looking steadily at her. "And the truth is, I wanted a yacht, and I went down to look at her, tried her, liked her, and bought her. Doesn't it sound very like a marriage?" Caroline laughed. "That's your theory--we're all for sale, and handed over to the best bidder."