After that evening I became a regular and welcome visitor at Lord Elton's house, and was soon on terms of the most friendly intimacy with all the members of his family, including even the severely pious Miss Charlotte Fitzroy. It was not difficult for me to see that my matrimonial aspirations were suspected,--and though the encouragement I received from Lady Sibyl herself was so slight as to make me doubtful whether after all my hopes of winning her would ever be realized, the Earl made no secret of his delight at the idea of securing me as a son-in-law. Such wealth as mine was not to be met with every day,--and even had I been a blackleg of the turf or a retired jockey, instead of an 'author,' I should, with five millions at my back, have been considered quite as desirable a suitor for the Lady Sibyl's hand. Rimânez scarcely ever went with me to the Eltons' now, pleading as excuse much pressing business and many social engagements. I was not altogether sorry for this. Greatly as I admired and honoured him, his extraordinary physical beauty and fascination of manner were in dangerous contrast to my merely 'ordinary good-looking' personality, and it seemed to me impossible that any woman, seeing much of him, could be expected to give me the preference. All the same I had no fear that he would ever voluntarily become my rival,--his antipathy to women was too deep-rooted and sincere for that. On this point indeed his feelings were so strong and passionate that I often wondered why the society sirens who eagerly courted his attention remained so blind and unconscious to the chill cynicism that lurked beneath his seeming courtesy,--the cutting satire that was coupled with apparent compliment, and the intensity of hatred that flamed under the assumed expression of admiring homage in his flashing eyes. However it was not my business to point out to those who could not, or would not, see the endless peculiarities of my friend's variable disposition. I did not pay much heed to them even so far as I myself was concerned, for I had grown accustomed to the quick changes he was wont to ring on all the gamut of human feeling, and absorbed in my own life-schemes I did not trouble myself to intimately study the man who had in a couple of months become my _fidus Achates_. I was engrossed at the moment in doing all I could to increase the Earl of Elton's appreciative sense of my value as a man and a millionaire, and to this end I paid some of his pressing debts, lent him a large sum of money without demanding interest or promise of repayment, and stocked his cellar with presents of such rare old wines as he had not been able to afford to purchase for himself for many years. Thus was confidence easily engendered between us, even to that point of affection which displayed itself in his lordship's readiness to thrust his arm through mine when we sauntered together down Piccadilly, and his calling me 'my dear boy' in public.