San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-10-17

| ianented, with evident sincerity, that
his own record could not be represented
as equally blank.
There, no USE" he sighed. sin deny
ing that for good many years was
very much in love with my cousin Sybil.
Only suppose it would be true to say
that wasn't really in love with her,
but with some imaginary being whom
pictured TO myself in her place. can't
be thankful enough that my eyes were
opened before met you, Dorothyr'
'She is great deal kinder and better
than you choose to allow" declared
Dorothy, who could afford to be gener-
Gus.
"Well-. perhaps. Oh, yes; dare say
she is. But / stupidity took her for a
sample of women in general, and not so
very long ago had quite made up my
mind that | would have nothing more
to do with women for the rest of my
life. That was how it was that l al
lowed myself to be dragged into that
idiotic conspiracy Of Guise's By the
way, must tell you about the conspir-
acy. 1t was one evening last spring,
just before met you for the first time.
Three Of us were dining with Guise at
his club, and he was holding forth upon
the folly of marrying for love. He said
! man in love was the worst possible
Judge of the woman he loved, and /
ihink we all agreed with him more or
ess."
"Do you still agree with himy" Doro-
ny inquired
mo; because | am older and wiser
low than was then; the experience that
had had at the time seemed to lend sup
port to his view. Well, there was good
leal of talk, 20 which l didn't listen
very particularly until heard Guise
proposing to start a select society of
bachelors for purposes of mutual pro-
lection. Every man who joined it was
20 give his honor as gentleman that he
wouldn't offer. marriage to any lady in
The course of the ensuing year with
out having previously consulted his col
leagues. And he was to agree to be
bound by their decision; that is to say,
if they disapproved of her or thought he
wouldn't be happy with her he was to
abstain from speaking or writing to her
for six months.
"Of course treated the whole scheme
as joke; but | had no particular OBJ
lection to taking the required pledge,
because / was perfectly certain that
shouldn't want to propose to anybody
before the year was out. dare say the
other two men may have had the same
conviction about themselves; for, as far
as remember, we none of us raised any
difficulties. 1t just shows how little
one can foresee the future and how care
full one ought to be about committing
ones self"
1T does indeed" agreed Dorothy. 81
suppose that is why Lord Guise felt it so
necessary to protect you. And to think
that, in spite of all his precautions, he
should have failedr'
Percy drew a long breath. YES" he
said, Il have had better luck than de-
served, and better luck than expected
last July, can tell you. OF course as
soon as ! made up my mind that
couldn't let you leave London without
telling you howl loved you / had to
summon a meeting of this abominable
society, and then a most extraordinary
thing happened, for when we met it ap-
peared, if you'll believe me, that two
out of the other three members were in
my own predicament Well, one might
have thought that as all we wanted of
each other was to be let alone it would
have been easy to come to an under
standing, but unluckily it did not prove
so. The two others happened to have
fallen in love with the same lady, so that
naturally they fell out, and | myself
| was obliged to vote against one of them,
and the result was that they were both
condemned to exile. After that they re-
taliated upon me, and Guise triumphed
all along the line. Wasn't it disas-
trous coincidence
very" answered Dorothy, who did
not seem to be as much surprised BY
this narrowing tale as the narrator had
anticipated. But why did you invite
opposition by voting against Mr.. Schnei-
der-or was it against Mr.. MoretonT"
land pray, what makes you think
| that Schneider and Moreton were the two
men in question:
''Oh, Lady Belvoir told me that long
ago. You forget that they both had to
take leave of her, and to make some sort
Of lame excuse for cutting her acquaint-
ance until after an interval of six
| months"
80 you have known the truth all
along"
mot exactly; but Lady Belvoir was