And Mr. Barker?  He felt a little crushed when she left him there alone in the Japanese boudoir, for he knew at once that he might as well throw up the game.  There was not the least chance for him any longer.  He might indeed suspect that the documents Margaret spoke of were a myth, and that her declaration of the engagement was in reality the only weapon she could use in Claudius’s defence.  But that did not change matters.  No woman would “give herself away,” as he expressed it, so recklessly, unless she were perfectly certain.  Therefore Mr. Barker went into the supper-room, and took a little champagne to steady his nerves; after which he did his best to amuse himself, talking with unusual vivacity to any young lady of his acquaintance whom he could allure from her partner for a few minutes.  For he had kept himself free of engagements that evening on Margaret’s account, and now regretted it bitterly.  But Mr. Barker was a great match, as has been said before, and he seldom had any difficulty in amusing himself when he felt so inclined.  He had not witnessed Margaret’s departure, for, not wishing to be seen coming out of the boudoir alone, a sure sign of defeat, and being perfectly familiar with the house, he had found his way by another door, and through circuitous passages to the pantry, and thence to the supper-room; so that by the time he had refreshed himself Margaret and Mr. Bellingham had gone.

Do people of Mr. Barker’s stamp feel?  Probably not.  It requires a strong organisation, either animal or intellectual, to suffer much from any shock to the affections.  Englishmen, on those occasions when their passion gets the better of their caution, somewhat a rare occurrence nowadays, are capable of loving very strongly, and of suffering severely if thwarted, for they are among the most powerful races in the animal kingdom.  Their whole history shows this, moulded as it has generally been by exceptional men, for the most part Irish and Scotch, in whom the highest animal and intellectual characteristics were united.  Germans, in whom the intellectual faculties, and especially the imagination, predominate, are for the most part very love-sick for at least half their lives.  But Americans seem to be differently organised; meaning, of course, the small class, who would like to be designated as the “aristocracy” of the country.  The faculties are all awake, acute, and ready for use; but there is a lack of depth, which will rouse the perpetual wonder of future generations.  While the mass of the people exhibits the strong characteristics of the Saxon, the Celtic, and the South German races, physical endurance and occasionally intellectual pre-eminence,—­for, saving some peculiarities of speech, made defects merely by comparison, there are no such natural orators and statesmen in the world as are to be found in Congress; at the same time, the would-be aristocracy of the country is remarkable for nothing so much as for the very unaristocratic faculty of getting money—­rarely mingling in public questions, still more rarely producing anything of merit, literary or artistic.  Therefore, being so constituted that the almighty dollar crowns the edifice of their ambitions as with a coronet of milled silver, they are singularly inapt to suffer from such ills as prick the soul, which taketh no thought for the morrow, what it shall eat or what it shall drink.