"Ah!" said Gordon, "as I thought,--a mere dreamer"



CHAPTER V.

KENELM entered the room. The young cousins were introduced, shook
hands, receded a step, and gazed at each other. It is scarcely
possible to conceive a greater contrast outwardly than that between
the two Chillingly representatives of the rising generation. Each was
silently impressed by the sense of that contrast. Each felt that the
contrast implied antagonism, and that if they two met in the same
arena it must be as rival combatants; still, by some mysterious
intuition, each felt a certain respect for the other, each divined in
the other a power that he could not fairly estimate, but against which
his own power would be strongly tasked to contend. So might exchange
looks a thorough-bred deer-hound and a half-bred mastiff: the
bystander could scarcely doubt which was the nobler animal; but he
might hesitate which to bet on, if the two came to deadly quarrel.
Meanwhile the thorough-bred deer-hound and the half-bred mastiff
sniffed at each other in polite salutation. Gordon was the first to
give tongue.

"I have long wished to know you personally," said he, throwing into
his voice and manner that delicate kind of deference which a well-born
cadet owes to the destined head of his house. "I cannot conceive how
I missed you last night at Lady Beaumanoir's, where Mivers tells me he
met you; but I left early,"