"I never heard any one say that before. Of what use will the Deacon's Well be to you? Do you mean to tell me you have no wish left ungratified?"
"Well, perhaps there are a few things I would willingly put out of my way," I reply, with a faint recurrence in my own mind to Lady Blanche Going.
"Only things? You are unfortunate. When I go in for that useless sort of wishing, it is for people—not things—I would have removed. Were I you, Mrs. Carrington, I believe I should live in a perpetual state of terror, waiting for some blow to fall to crush such excessive happiness. You know one cannot be prosperous forever."
"I never anticipate evil," return I, lightly. "Surely it is bad enough when it comes, without adding to it by being miserable beforehand. Why, how doleful you look? What is it? You remind me of some youthful swain in love for the first time in his life."
"Perhaps I am."
"In love? How amusing! With whom then? Bebe? Dora? Or some person or persons unknown? Come, surely you may confide with all safety in your hostess."
"She is the last person I would choose as a confidante on this occasion. The sympathy she would accord me would be very scanty."
"Oh, how unjust! Have I proved myself so utterly heartless? And is sympathy so very needful in your case—is it a hopeless one?"
"Quite so."
"Poor Sir Mark! 'If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be?' is a very good motto: why not adopt it, and—love again? I have heard there is nothing easier."