“I bought the little dog, and it bit my aunt’s heel.  I was very sorry then, and gave the creature to Mary Rivers.  He was such a beauty!  I hope the perdition has gone with him, for I don’t like Mary Rivers at all.  I had to give the poor beasty to somebody, and Mary Rivers happened to be there.  I told her that Puck was connected with Apollyon, but she didn’t mind that.  Puck was worth twenty guineas, and I daresay she has sold him.”

“Oswald may have an equal chance then among the other favourites?” said Lady Laura, after another pause.

“There are no favourites, and I will not say that any man may have a chance.  Why do you press me about your brother in this way?”

“Because I am so anxious.  Because it would save him.  Because you are the only woman for whom he has ever cared, and because he loves you with all his heart; and because his father would be reconciled to him to-morrow if he heard that you and he were engaged.”

“Laura, my dear—­”

“Well.”

“You won’t be angry if I speak out?”

“Certainly not.  After what I have said, you have a right to speak out.”

“It seems to me that all your reasons are reasons why he should marry me;—­not reasons why I should marry him.”

“Is not his love for you a reason?”

“No,” said Violet, pausing,—­and speaking the word in the lowest possible whisper.  “If he did not love me, that, if known to me, should be a reason why I should not marry him.  Ten men may love me,—­I don’t say that any man does—­”

“He does.”

“But I can’t marry all the ten.  And as for that business of saving him—­”

“You know what I mean!”

“I don’t know that I have any special mission for saving young men.  I sometimes think that I shall have quite enough to do to save myself.  It is strange what a propensity I feel for the wrong side of the post.”

“I feel the strongest assurance that you will always keep on the right side.”

“Thank you, my dear.  I mean to try, but I’m quite sure that the jockey who takes me in hand ought to be very steady himself.  Now, Lord Chiltern—­”

“Well,—­out with it.  What have you to say?”

“He does not bear the best reputation in this world as a steady man.  Is he altogether the sort of man that mammas of the best kind are seeking for their daughters?  I like a roue myself;—­and a prig who sits all night in the House, and talks about nothing but church-rates and suffrage, is to me intolerable.  I prefer men who are improper, and all that sort of thing.  If I were a man myself I should go in for everything I ought to leave alone.  I know I should.  But you see,—­I’m not a man, and I must take care of myself.  The wrong side of a post for a woman is so very much the wrong side.  I like a fast man, but I know that I must not dare to marry the sort of man that I like.”

“To be one of us, then,—­the very first among us;—­would that be the wrong side?”