“'Pon my soul, I really don't know why I'm going in for it. I promised old Potter years ago that I would come in when he gave up, and the people down there more or less took it for granted, the duchess included, and so without having thought much of it one way or the other, I find myself caught in a net. It will be a horrible bore. The whole of the session will be one dismal yawn. Never to be certain of sitting down to one's dinner in peace and comfort. Never to know when one will have to rush off at a moment's notice to take part in a confounded division. To have shoals of correspondence on subjects one knows nothing of and cares less for. It will be the life of a sweated tailor. And I, of all people, who like to take things easy! I'm not quite sure whether I'm an idiot or a hero.” He ended in a short laugh and leaned against the mantelpiece, his hands in his pockets. “It would be the sweet and pretty thing for me to say,” remarked Norma, “that in my eyes you will always be heroic.” “Well, 'pon my soul, I shall be. We 'll see precious little of one another.” “We'll have all the more chance of prolonging our illusions,” she replied. On the whole, however, her conduct towards him was irreproachable. The thaw from her usual iciness to this comparatively harmless raillery flattered the lover's self-esteem. Woman-wise, as every man in the profundity of his vain heart believes himself to be, he not only attributed the change to his own powers of seduction, but interpreted as significant of a yet greater transformation. A man of Morland's type is seldom afflicted with a morbid subtlety of perception; and when he has gained for his own personal use and adornment a woman of singular distinction, he may be readily pardoned for a slight attack of fatuity.