t be like my cousin over there for the world she thinks her husband will be turned out at the next election and she s quite wild yes it is mostly the women who are the the men only the cards the pity is that politics are looked on as being a game for just as is a game for not as the serious duties of political how few of us ever think or feel that the nation of every country dwells in the cottage as somebody says yes though i wonder to hear you quote that oh � i am of no party though my relations are there can be only one best course at all times and the wisdom of the nation should be directed to finding it instead of in two courses according to the will of the party which happens to have the upper hand o the well beloved having started thus they found no difficulty in agreeing on many points when went down stairs from that assembly at a quarter to one and passed under the steaming nostrils of an s horses to a which waited for him against the railing of the square he had an impression that the beloved had re emerged from the shadows without any hint or from him � to whom indeed such re was an unquestionably awkward thing in this he was aware however that though it might be now as heretofore the loved who danced before him it was the goddess behind her who pulled the string of that jumping he had lately been trying his artist hand again on the s form in every conceivable phase and mood he had become a one part man � a of her only but his efforts had resulted in failures in her vanity she might be him anew for presenting her so ii she draws close and he could not forget mrs pine s eyes though he remembered nothing of her other details they were round inquiring luminous how that chestnut hair of hers had shone it required no to set it off like that of the he had seen there who had put ten thousand pounds upon her head to make herself look worse than she would have appeared with the muslin cap of a servant woman now the question was ought he to see her again he had his doubts but unfortunately for discretion just when he was coming out of the rooms he had encountered an old lady of seventy his friend mrs � the honorable mrs � and she had hastily asked him to dinner for the day after the morrow stating in the honest way he knew so well that she had heard jo y the well beloved he was out of town or she would have asked him two or three weeks ago now of all social things that liked it was to be asked to dinner as a stop gap in place of some bishop lord or under secretary who couldn t come and when the invitation was by the tidings that the lady who had so impressed him was to be one of the guests he had promised instantly at the dinner he took down mrs pine upon his arm and talked to nobody else during the meal afterwards they kept apart awhile in the drawing room for form s sake but eventually together again and finished the evening in each others company when shortly after eleven he came away he felt almost certain that within those luminous gray eyes the one of his eternal fidelity had verily taken lodgings � and for a long lease but this was not all at parting he had almost involuntarily given her hand a pressure of a peculiar and indescribable kind a little response from her like a mere of the same sort told him that the impression she had made upon him was she was in a word willing to go on but was he able a young man of forty there had not been much harm in the thus far but did she know his history the curse upon his nature � that he was the wandering jew of the love world how ideal his fancies were how the artist in him had consumed the how he was in constant dread lest he should wrong some woman twice as good as himself by seeming to mean what he fain would mean but could not how useless he was likely to be for practical steps towards though he was all the while for domestic life he was now over forty she was probably thirty and he dared not make love with the careless selfishness of a younger man it was unfair to go further without telling her even though hitherto such had not been absolutely demanded he determined to call immediately on the new she lived not far from the long fashionable square and he went hither with expectations of having a highly time at least but somehow the very seemed cold although she had so earnestly asked him to come as the house spoke so spoke the the well beloved much to the astonishment of the the doors he passed through seemed as if they had not been opened for a month and entering the large drawing room he beheld in an easy chair in the far distance a lady whom he across the carpet to reach and ultimately did reach to be sure it was mrs pine but over raising her eyes in a slightly inquiring manner from the book she was reading she leaned back in the chair as if herself in luxurious sensations which had nothing to do with him and replied to his greeting with a few commonplace words the unfortunate though to a degree was at first terribly upset by this reception he had distinctly begun to love and he felt sick and almost but happily his affection 