with him on earth.

She was put aside rather petulantly, and she took her seat out of the
whirl with submission. Thinking she certainly was not Browny, whom he
would have known among a million, he tried to quit the hall, and he
twirled afresh, necessarily not alone; it is the unpardonable offence
both to the Graces and the Great Mother for man to valse alone. She
twirled on his arm, uninvited; accepted, as in the course of nature;
hugged, under dictate of the nature of the man steeled against her by the
counting of gain, and going now at desperation's pace, by very means of
those defensive locked steam-valves meant to preserve him from this
madness,--for the words of the red-lipped mate, where there were no
words, went through him like a music when the bow is over the viol,
sweeping imagination, and they said her life was wasting.

Was not she a priceless manuscript cast to the flames? Her lord had been
at some trouble to win her. Or his great fame and his shadowed fortunes
had won her. He took her for his own, and he would not call her his own.
He comported himself with absolute, with kindly deference to the lady
whose more than vital spark he let the gossips puff at and blur. He
praised her courage, visibly admired her person, admitted her in private
to be his equal, degraded her in public. Could anything account for the
behaviour of so manly and noble a gentleman?--Rhetoric made the attempt,
and Weyburn gave up the windy business.

Discovering that his fair partner of the wasting life was--he struggled
to quench the revelation--Aminta, he stopped the dance. If there was no
gain in whirling fancifully with one of the sex, a spin of a minute with
her was downright bankruptcy.