kind of happiness to which he could now look forward.  In the first place, all Brussels knew that he had been in love with Florence Mountjoy.  He thought that all Brussels knew it.  And they knew that he had been in earnest in this love.  He did believe that all Brussels had given him credit for so much.  And now they would know that he had suddenly ceased to make love.  It might be that this should be attributed to gallantry on his part,—­that it should be considered that the lady had been deserted.  But he was conscious that he was not so good a hypocrite as not to show that he was broken-hearted.  He was quite sure that it would be seen that he had got the worst of it.  But when he asked himself questions as to his own condition he told himself that there was suffering in store for him more heavy to bear than these.  There could be no ponies, with Florence driving them, and a boy in his own livery behind, seen upon the boulevards.  That vision was gone, and forever.  And then came upon him an idea that the absence of the girl from other portions of his life might touch him more nearly.  He did feel something like actual love.  And the more she had told him of her devotion to Harry Annesley, the more strongly he had felt the value of that devotion.  Why should this man have it and not he?  He had not been disinherited.  He had not been knocked about in a street quarrel.  He had not been driven to tell a lie as to his having not seen a man when he had, in truth, knocked him down.  He had quite agreed with Florence that Harry was justified in the lie; but there was nothing in it to make the girl love him the better for it.

And then, looking forward, he could perceive the possibility of an event which, if it should occur, would cover him with confusion and disgrace.  If, after all, Florence were to take, not Harry Annesley, but somebody else?  How foolish, how credulous, how vain would he have been then to have made the promise!  Girls did such things every day.  He had promised, and he thought that he must keep his promise; but she would be bound by no promise!  As he thought of it, he reflected that he might even yet exact such a promise from her.

But when the dinner-time came he really was sick with love,—­or sick with disappointment.  He felt that he could not eat his dinner under the battery of raillery which was always coming from Sir Magnus, and therefore he had told the servants that as the evening progressed he would have something to eat in his own room.  And then he went out to wander in the dusk beneath the trees in the garden.  Here he was encountered by Mr. Arbuthnot, with his dress boots and white cravat.  “What the mischief are you doing here, old fellow?”

“I’m not very well.  I have an awfully bilious headache.”

“Sir Magnus is kicking up a deuce of a row because you’re not there.”

“Sir Magnus be blowed!  How am I to be there if I’ve got a bilious headache?  I’m not dressed.  I could not have dressed myself for a five-pound note.”