"Hm !" he

says thoughtfully.

"I

suppose you were once; but, by Jove, it requires the eye of faith to realise it now!"

“I detested and despised you then," she flames out passionately; "you know I refused you three times."

"I can only regret that you ever exerted your woman's privilege of changing your mind in my favour," he answers politely.

"I hate you!" she cries, bursting into

tears.

"Mutual, I assure you. Don't spoil those lovely eyes. Good night. Good night. Dormez bien, mon ange," and he retires to his dressing-room.

How they hate each other at that moment! What hate is so black or bitter as the hatred of man and wife, only fortunately in many cases it comes on in paroxysms, and is too violent to last.

VOL. I.

Q

226

CHAPTER XII.

LONDON IN SPRING.

NE of those delicious Spring days just

ONE

after Easter, when the season has scarcely begun, but nearly everyone is in town, and London is charming.

It is not surprising that strangers think our dear old city a dull, unsociable, dingy place, especially when they have just come from Paris-the gay, the bright, the beautiful; but I believe, to the genuine Londoner, it is the real El Dorado in the first blush of the dawning season, when he comes back to it from the country, or abroad, and meets everybody he knows between the top of

Bond Street and the middle of Pall Mall. They look so cheery and so glad to see you too, and the pretty women of your acquaintance are so much more pressing in their invitations than later on, when they are bored to death with the business of pleasure, and exhausted after so much hard labour in entertaining and being entertained, "Now you must come to tea, I have so much to tell you; and have you seen So-and-So, and So-and-So, and did you hear . . . . . ?— but I'll tell you all about it when you come. Now don't forget-I shall expect you. No.

the old address. Good-bye," and Madame rolls away in her carriage, which she has actually stopped to speak to you; and you pursue your way smiling, very well pleased with yourself and your neighbour, thinking what an awfully charming woman this is, what an awfully jolly place London is, and what an awful mistake it is to go abroad to

be amused, when everything's so much nicer and pleasanter in England. And the little dinners people give are so much jollier, because they are not duty dinners, but friendly and sociable; and you are asked to meet the people you like, and not dreadful, heavy old fogies, who have to be entertained because they have given a big feed to your host and hostess, or are going to do so, some time during the season. Your Club is just pleasant; there are enough fellows to make it cheery, without the horrid mob that fills it between the popular race meetings. The trees are throwing out tender green shoots; you've put on your blue frock-coat, with a jardinière in the button-hole, the first time this. season; you've had your hair cut, and, on the whole, rather fancy yourself, as you stroll down St. James's Street, arm in arm with another fellow, laughing with un

feigned enjoyment at the piquant little stories about everybody that you haven't heard because you've been away so long. And, after all, you're very well pleased with your own countrywomen, because they look fresh and lady-like, though they don't dress like Frenchwomen or Americans, and though, with a few exceptions, their boots froissent you inexpressibly.

In this pleasant position George Thornton finds himself on the afternoon of which I am about to write. He has been wintering abroad with his mother and sister, and in spite of the awful blow he thinks he got in being thrown over by Mrs. Scarlett,

he

manages to sustain life with equanimity, and to feel pretty jolly, though he gives vent to his spleen by the assumption of a certain cynicism of manner, and by railing at women, after the manner of a disappointed boy, whenever he can conveniently