Page:What will he do with it.djvu/420

410 vyan was a fairy. Not peculiarly intellectual herself, she had a veneration for intellect; those fast young men were the last persons likely to fascinate that fast young lady. Women are so perverse; they always prefer the very people you would least suspect—the antitheses to themselves. Yet is it possible that Flora Vyvyan can have carried her crotchets to so extravagant a degree as to have designed the conquest of Guy Darrell—ten years older than her own father? She, too, an heiress—certainly not mercenary; she who had already refused better worldly matches than Darrell himself was—young men, handsome men, with coronets on the margin of their note-paper and the panels of their broughams? The idea seemed preposterous; nevertheless, Alban Morley, a shrewd observer, conceived that idea, and trembled for his friend.

At last the young lady and her satellites shot off, and the Colonel said, cautiously, "Miss Vyvyan is—alarming."

. "Alarming! the epithet requires construing."

. "The sort of girl who might make a man of your years really and literally—an old fool!"

. "Old fool such a man must be if girls of any sort are permitted to make him a greater fool than he was before. But I think that, with those pretty hands resting on one's armchair, or that sunny face shining into one's study windows, one might be a very happy old fool—and that is the most one can expect!"

(checking an anxious groan). "I am afraid, my poor friend, you are far gone already. No wonder Honoria Vipont fails to be appreciated. But Lady Selina has a maxim—the truth of which my experience attests—'the moment it comes to women, the most sensible men are the—'"

"Oldest fools!" put in Darrell. "If Mark Antony made such a goose of himself for that painted harridan Cleopatra, what would he have done for a blooming Juliet? Youth and high spirits! Alas! why are these to be unsuitable companions for us, as we reach that climax in time and sorrow—when to the one we are grown the most indulgent, and of the other have the most need? Alban, that girl, if her heart were really won—her wild nature wisely mastered—gently guided—would make a true, prudent, loving, admirable wife—"

"Heavens!" cried Alban Morley.

"To such a husband," pursued Darrell, unheeding the ejaculation, "as—Lionel Haughton. What say you?"

"Lionel—oh, I have no objection at all to that; but he's too young yet to think of marriage—a mere boy. Besides, if you