Nevertheless, I had my good times, for by now I was tired of sitting up half the night and of going to endless dances and listening to innumerable empty compliments, and being smiled at by men whom I could not take the faintest interest in, and whose names I hardly remembered. But as the summer came on faster and faster, and the London season advanced to its height, I did enjoy my morning walks with Morris. Lady Helen had said something about my having a horse to ride, but up to the present I was not given one, and consequently I walked with Morris, and we invariably went into Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens. I remember a day early in May, when I unexpectedly met Captain Carbury. I was sitting on a chair, with Morris next to me, when I saw him in the distance. He pushed rapidly through a crowd of people, and came up to my side. He took a chair close to mine. "Can't you get your maid to walk about for a short time?" he said. "I have something of great importance I want to say to you." I turned towards Morris. "Morris, will you kindly go to the first entrance and buy me two shillingsworth of violets?" I said to the girl. Morris rose at once to do what I asked. "That's right," said Captain Carbury, when we were alone. "I have such a strange thing to tell you, Miss Grayson." "That isn't my name now," I said. "I beg your pardon," he replied, turning a little red, "Miss Dalrymple." Then he added: "I have been wanting to see you for weeks, but did not know how to manage it." "But was there any difficulty?" I asked. "You know where my father and Lady Helen live. You could have called." He coloured and looked down on the ground. "We have met at last," he said, after a pause, "and now I have this to tell you." "What?" "You saw Dorothy Vinguard once, didn't you?" "The girl you are engaged to? Of course." "I am not engaged to her any longer; our engagement is broken off." "Oh, I am sorry," I said, and I looked at him with a world of sympathy in my eyes. "Dear little Miss Heather," he replied, "you needn't be sorry, for I assure you I am not." "But why is it broken off?" I asked. "I thought when people were engaged that, if they were nice people, they considered it sacred, and--and _kept_ engaged until they married." "Oh, you dear little innocent!" he replied. "How little you know! Well, at any rate, I am not going to enlighten you with regard to the ways of this wicked world. The engagement is broken off, and I am glad of it. I didn't do it; she did. She has engaged herself now to another man, with five or six times my money. She is all right, and so am I." Then I said slowly, "You puzzle me very much, Captain Carbury. I thought you were very, very fond of her." He dug his stick into the gravel walk near; then he glanced round at me impatiently. "You can put all that sort of thing into the past tense," he said. "Now tell me about yourself. How are you getting on?" "I am not getting on," I answered.