"Apparently you are--careless of any consequences to herself or those
about her."

"But what is your objection, Ingram?" said the young man, suddenly
abandoning his defiant manner: "why should you object? Do you think I
would make a bad husband to the woman I married?"

"I believe nothing of the sort. I believe you would make a very good
husband if you were to marry a woman whom you knew something about,
and whom you had really learned to love and respect through your
knowledge of her. I tell you, you know nothing about Sheila Mackenzie
as yet. If you were to marry her to-morrow, you would discover in six
months she was a woman wholly different from what you had expected."

"Very well, then," said Lavender with an air of triumph, "you can't
deny this: you think so much of her that the real woman I would
discover must be better than the one I imagine; and so you don't
expect I shall be disappointed?"

"If you marry Sheila Mackenzie you will be disappointed--not through
her fault, but your own. Why, a more preposterous notion never entered
into a man's head! She knows nothing of your friends or your ways of
life: you know nothing of hers. She would be miserable in London, even
if you could persuade her father to go with her, which is the most
unlikely thing in the world. Do give up this foolish idea, like a good
fellow; and do it before Sheila is dragged into a flirtation that may
have the most serious consequences to her."

Lavender would not promise, but all that afternoon various resolutions
and emotions were struggling within him for mastery, insomuch that