page at the matter in hand_.)

Ah, it was very sweet, your literary love-letter. Considerable style, as
you would say, but too palpably artificial. If you want to deceive this
woman, my dear sir trifler, you must disguise your mockery more artfully.

Why didn't I find you at the Stanwoods'? I had Nettie send you a card. I
had promised you to a dozen delightful women, "our choicest lot," who were
all agog to see my supercilious and dainty sir.... Why will you always
play with things? Perhaps you will say because I am not worth serious
moments. You play with everything, I believe, and that is banal. Ever
sincerely,

EDITH ARMSTRONG.



NO. III. EXPLANATORY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIC.

(_Eastlake has the masculine fondness for seeing himself in the right_.)

I turned the Stanwoods' card down, and for your sake, or rather for the
sake of your memory. I preferred to sit here and dream about you in the
midst of my chimney-pots and the dull March mists rather than to run the
risk of another, and perhaps fatal, impression. And so far as you are
concerned your reproach is just. Do I "play with everything"? Perhaps I
am afraid that it might play with me. Imagine frolicking with tigers, who
might take you seriously some day, as a tidbit for afternoon tea--if you
should confess that you were serious! That's the way I think of the world,
or, rather, your part of it. Surely, it is a magnificent game, whose rules