"Yesterday," said Ormiston, with a deep sigh. "And if she were
made of granite, she could not be harder to me than she is!"

"So she doesn't care about you, then?"

"Not she! She has a little Blenheim lapdog, that she loves a
thousand times more than she ever will me!"

"Then what an idiot you are, to keep haunting her like her
shadow! Why don't you be a man, and tear out from your heart
such a goddess?"

"Ah! that's easily said; but if you were in my place, you'd act
exactly as I do."

"I don't believe it. It's not in me to go mad about anything
with a masked face and a marble heart. If I loved any woman -
which, thank Fortune! at this present time I do not - and she had
the bad taste not to return it, I should take my hat, make her a
bow, and go directly and love somebody else made of flesh and
blood, instead of cast iron! You know the old song, Ormiston:

'If she be not fair for me
What care I how fair she be!'"

"Kingsley, you know nothing about it!" said Ormiston,
impatiently. "So stop talking nonsense. If you are cold-blooded,
I am not; and - I love her!"

Sir Norman slightly shrugged his shoulders, and flung his