And he laughed with cunning exultation.

'Miss Rachel will find I'm not quite such a lubber as she fancies. But
even then it is only begun. Come, Charlie, you used to like a bet. What
do you say? I'll buy you that twenty-five guinea book of pictures--what's
its name?--if you give me three hundred guineas one month after I'm a
peer of Parliament. Hey? There's a sporting offer for you. Well! what do
you say--eh?'

'You mean to come out as an orator, then?'

'Orator be diddled! Do you take me for a fool? No, Charlie; but I'll come
out strong as a _voter_--that's the stuff they like--at the right side,
of course, and that is the way to manage it. Thirteen thousand a
year--the oldest family in the county--and a steady thick and thin
supporter of the minister. Strong points, eh, Charlie? Well, do you take
my offer?'

I laughed and declined, to his great elation, and just then the gong
sounded and we were away to our toilets.

While making my toilet for dinner, I amused myself by conjecturing
whether there could be any foundation in fact for Mark's boast, that Miss
Brandon liked him. Women are so enigmatical--some in everything--all in
matters of the heart. Don't they sometimes actually admire what is
repulsive? Does not brutality in our sex, and even rascality, interest
them sometimes? Don't they often affect indifference, and occasionally
even aversion, where there is a different sort of feeling?

As I went down I heard Miss Lake chatting with her queen-like cousin near