for his future career.

He had been often at the house in Curzon Street in the
earliest happy days of his friend's marriage, and had thus become
acquainted--intimately acquainted--with Nora Rowley. And now again,
since his return from Patagonia, that acquaintance had been renewed.
Quite lately, since the actual sale of that wig and gown had been
effected, he had not been there so frequently as before, because
Trevelyan had expressed his indignation almost too openly.

'That such a man as you should be so faint-hearted,' Trevelyan had
said, 'is a thing that I can not understand.'

'Is a man faint-hearted when he finds it improbable that he shall
be able to leap his horse over a house.'

'What you had to do, had been done by hundreds before you.'

'What I had to do has never yet been done by any man,' replied
Stanbury. 'I had to live upon nothing till the lucky hour should
strike.'

'I think you have been cowardly,' said Trevelyan.

Even this had made no quarrel between the two men; but Stanbury had
expressed himself annoyed by his friend's language, and partly on
that account, and partly perhaps on another, had stayed away from
Curzon Street. As Nora Rowley had made comparisons about him, so
had he made comparisons about her. He had owned to himself that had
it been possible that he should marry, he would willingly entrust