'Even accepting all you say as gospel, Fitzwarren, it comes to the same thing. It might succeed with most women, as you say, but I don't think it will with her. It may make her like me, but I don't think it will make her love me. I don't think she is a bit worldly, and I know by what she let drop one day when we were chatting together, when we got rather confidential at the beginning of the season, that she had got the idea in her head that a woman ought to respect her husband, and look up to him, and had in fact formed a distinct notion of the sort of man she should choose; and I felt at the time, though there was nothing whatever personal in our talk, I was the very last sort of fellow she would choose for her husband. Well, I shall try again; I have won more than one steeplechase after a horse going down with me at a bad fence. This is the same sort of thing after all; it is of no use mounting and going on again when you see another fellow sailing away ahead, and close to the winning post, but if he has fallen too, and nothing seems to have a better chance than you have, a man who gives up the race because he has had an awkward purler is no better than a cur.'

'As it does not make much difference to me which way we go, Armstrong, I am willing enough to keep with you for a bit, and see how things go; but I don't suppose I shall be able to stand it long, and I shall reserve to myself the right of striking off on my own account, or joining someone else if I find your society insupportable.'

'That is all right, old fellow; our arrangement was to travel together. Of course, if I give up travelling and take to loitering about, you are free to do what you like, and I am the last man to wish you to alter your plans because I have changed my mind. As a rule, I think it is always wise to steer clear of people one knows when one is travelling, and to be free to do exactly as one likes, which one never can if one gets mixed up with a party. I have always been dead against that. They want to see things you don't want to see, they want to stay in towns and to potter about picture galleries and churches, while you want to go right away up a hill——'

'That is not the worst of it, Armstrong, it is the danger.'

'The danger? What do you mean?'

'The danger of going too far. A flirtation means nothing in town, but it is apt to become a very serious matter when you are travelling about together. A row in a boat on an evening like this, or, as you say, going about to churches and picture galleries, when you are dead certain to get separated from the rest of the party, or a climb through a pine forest—these things are all full of peril, and you are liable to find yourself saying things that there is no getting out of, and there you are—engaged to perhaps the last girl that you would, had you calmly and patiently thought the matter out, have gone in for.'

Captain Armstrong laughed.

'Ah, it is all very well for you to laugh. In the first place you have been what is called a general flirt for years, and would not be suspected of serious intentions, unless you went very far indeed; and in the second place you could afford to marry a girl without a penny if you had any inclination to do so. It is a different thing altogether with fellows like myself, who have no choice between remaining single and marrying a wife with some money. There are some luxuries I absolutely cannot afford, and among them I may reckon travelling about in a party in which are some tocherless damsels—for instance the Fortescues, who, I daresay, will for the next ten days or a fortnight travel with the Hawtreys. They are nice, unaffected girls, pretty and pleasant, but they have three elder brothers. I could not afford one of them. My line in life is clearly chalked out. Not for me is the gilded heiress; her friends will look after her too sharply for that. I have pictured to myself that in another eight or ten years I may be able to secure the affections of the relict of some respectable man who has left her with a snug jointure. She will not be too young, but just approaching nearly enough to middle age to begin to fear being laid on the shelf. Then in the comfortable home that she will provide for me I can journey pleasantly and contentedly down the vale of life.'

Captain Armstrong burst into a loud laugh. 'You will never do it, Fitzwarren, never. There is a vein of romance in your composition that will be too much for you. It is always young men who fancy they are prudent who end by falling victims to some nice girl without a penny. You may take all the precautions you like, walk as circumspectly as you will, but when the time comes you will succumb without a struggle. However, do not let me lead you into the net of the fowler; keep away from the snare as long as you can; when your fate comes upon you you will be captured, and I doubt whether you will make as much as a struggle.'

'We shall see, Armstrong; at present you serve as a terrible example. Well, I suppose we may as well turn in.'