should have travelled so far down the road of life without losing his
enthusiasm somewhere by the way.

"That I leave to Lady Orlay," replied Deulin, with an airy wave of his
neat umbrella, which imperilled the eyesight of a passing baker-boy, who
abused him. Whereupon Deulin turned and took off his hat and apologized.

"Yes," he said, ignoring the incident, "I would not presume to dictate.
All I should do would be to present Wanda to her. 'Here is a girl who
has the misfortune to be a Bukaty; who has no mother; who has a father
who is a plotter and an old ruffian--a Polish noble, in fact--and a
brother who is an enthusiast, and as brave as only a prince can be.' I
should say, 'You see that circumstances have thrown this girl upon the
world, practically alone--on the hard, hard upper-class world--with only
one heart to break. It is only men who have a whole row of hearts on a
shelf, and, when one is broken, they take down another, made, perhaps,
of ambition, or sport, or the love of a different sort of woman--and,
vogue la galere, they go on just as well as they did before.'"

"And my accomplished aunt . . ." suggested Cartoner.

"Would laugh at me, I know that. I would rather have Lady Orlay's laugh
than another woman's tears. And so would you; for you are a man of
common-sense, though deadly dull in conversation."

As if to prove the truth of this assertion, Deulin was himself silent
until they had ascended St. James's Street and turned to the left in
Piccadilly; and, sure enough, Cartoner had nothing to say. At last
he broke the silence, and made it evident that he had been placidly
following the stream of his own thoughts.