her hot face bent down to within an inch of the cardboard.

"Not like it? She wouldn't be such an idiot, I hope, as to dislike it. Is
not Anne going to be my brother's wife? Did you suppose I spoke of Anne
in that way?--you must have been dreaming, Maude."

Maude hoped she had been. The young man took his cigar from his mouth,
ran a penknife through the end, and began smoking again.

"That time is far enough off, Maude. _I_ am not going to tie myself up
with a wife, or to think of one either, for many a long year to come."

Her heart beat with a painful throbbing. "Why not?"

"No danger. My wild oats are not sown yet, any more than Val's; only you
don't hear of them, because I have money to back me, and he has not. I
must find a girl I should like to make my wife before that event comes
off, Maude; and I have not found her yet."

Lady Maude damaged her landscape. She sketched in a tree where a chimney
ought to have been, and laid the fault upon her pencil.

"It has been real sport, Maude, ever since I came home from knocking
about abroad, to hear and see the old ladies. They think I am to be
caught with a bait; and that bait is each one's own enchanting daughter.
Let them angle, an they please--it does no harm. They are amused, and I
am none the worse. I enjoy a laugh sometimes, while I take care of
myself; as I have need to do, or I might find myself the victim of some
detestable breach-of-promise affair, and have to stand damages. But for
Anne Ashton, Val would have had his head in that Westminster-noose a