"I don't care for the Bourse. Indeed, I have nothing to speculate with."

"That is the best reason in the world, my dear, to make a venture; at least, so my brother-in-law, Annesley, says. You are certain to come out a winner, and in my own brief experiences, I never gave anything,--I only said, 'Yes, I 'll have the shares.' They were at fifty-eight and three-quarters, they said, and sure to be at sixty-four or five; and they actually did rise to seventy, and then we sold--that is, Dunn did--and remitted me twelve hundred and fifty-three pounds odd."

"I wish he could be equally fortunate with me. I don't mean as regards money," said Lady Grace; and her cheek became crimson as she spoke.

"I have always said there's a fate in these things; and who knows if his being here Just at this moment is not a piece of destiny."

"It might be so," said the other, sadly.

"There," said Lady Lackington, as she rapidly wrote a few lines on a piece of note-paper, "that ought to do:--

"'Dear Mr. Dunn,--If you will accept of an early dinner, with Lady Grace Twining and myself for the company, to-day, you will much oblige

"'Your truly,

"'Georgina Lackington.'"

"To another kind of man I'd have said something about two _pauvres femmes delaissees_, but he 'd have been frightened, and probably not come."

"Probably," said Lady Grace, with a sigh.

"Now, let us try the success of this." And she rang a bell, and despatched the note.

Lady Lackington had scarcely time to deliver a short essay on the class and order of men to which Mr. Davenport Dunn pertained, when the servant returned with the answer. It was a very formal acceptance of the invitation, "Mr. Davenport Dunn presented his compliments,"--and so on.

"Of course, he comes," said she, throwing the note away. "Do you know, my dear, I half suspect we have been indiscreet; for now that we have caught our elephant, what shall we do with him?"

"I cannot give you one solitary suggestion."

"These people are not our people, nor are their gods our gods," said Lady Lackington.

"If we all offer up worship at the same temple,--the Bourse," said Lady Grace, something sadly,--"we can scarcely dispute about a creed."

"That is only true in a certain sense," replied the other. "Money is a necessity to all; the means of obtaining it may, therefore, be common to many. It is in the employment of wealth, in the tasteful expenditure of riches, that we distinguish ourselves from these people. You have only to see the houses they keep, their plate, their liveries, their equipages, and you perceive at once that whenever they rise above some grovelling imitation they commit the most absurd blunders against all taste and propriety. I wish we had Spicer here to see about this dinner, it is one of the very few things he understands; but I suppose we must leave it to the cook himself, and we have the comfort of knowing that the criticism on his efforts will not be of a very high order."

"We dine at four, I believe," said Lady Grace, in her habitual tone of sorrow, as she swept from the room with that gesture of profound woe that would have graced a queen in tragedy.

Let us turn for a moment to Mr. Davenport Dunn. Lady Lackington's invitation had not produced in him either those overwhelming sensations of astonishment or those excessive emotions of delight which she had so sanguinely calculated on. There was a time that a Viscountess asking him thus to dinner had been an event, the very fact being one requiring some effort on his part to believe; but these days were long past. Mr. Dunn had not only dined with great people since that, but had himself been their host and entertainer. Noble lords and baronets had sipped his claret, right honorables praised his sherry, and high dignitaries condescended to inquire where he got "that exquisite port."

The tremulous, faint-hearted, doubting spirit, the suspectful, self-distrusting, humble man, had gone, and in his place there was a bold, resolute nature, confident and able, daily testing his strength against some other in the ring, and as often issuing from the contest satisfied that he had little to fear from any antagonist. He was clever enough to see that the great objects in life are accomplished less by dexterity and address than by a strong, undeviating purpose. The failure of many a gifted man, and the high success of many a commonplace one, had not been without its lesson for him; and it was in the firm resolve to rise a winner that he sat down to the game of life.

Lady Lackington's invitation was, therefore, neither a cause of pleasure nor astonishment. He remembered having met her somewhere, some time, and he approached the renewed acquaintance without any one of the sentiments her Ladyship had so confidently predicted. Indeed, so little of that flurry of anticipation did he experience, that he had to be reminded her Ladyship was waiting dinner for him, before he could remember the pleasure that was before him.

It may be a very ungallant confession for this true history to make, but we cannot blink saying that Lady Lack-ington and Lady Grace both evidenced by their toilette that they were not indifferent to the impression they were to produce upon their guest.

The Viscountess was dressed in the perfection of that French taste whose chief characteristic is freshness and elegance. She was light, gauzy, and floating,--a sweeping something of Valenciennes and white muslin,--but yet human withal, and very graceful. Her friend, in deep black, with a rich lace veil fastened on her head behind, and draped artistically over one shoulder, was a charming personification of affliction not beyond consolation. When they met, it was with an exchange of looks that said, "This ought to do."

Lady Lackington debated with herself what precise manner of reception she would award to Mr. Dunn,--whether to impose by the haughty condescension of a fine lady, or fascinate by the graceful charm of an agreeable one. She was "equal to either fortune," and could calculate on success, whichever road she adopted. While she thus hesitated, he entered.

If his approach had little or nothing of the man of fashion about it, it was still a manner wherein there was little to criticise. It was not bold nor timid, and, without anything like over-confidence, there was yet an air of self-reliance that was not without dignity.

At dinner the conversation ranged over the usual topics of foreign travel, foreign habits, collections, and galleries. Of pictures and statues he had seen much, and evidently with profit and advantage; of people and society he knew next to nothing, and her Ladyship quickly detected this deficiency, and fell back upon it as her stronghold.

"When hard-worked men like myself take a holiday," said Dunn, "they are but too glad to escape from the realities of life by taking refuge amongst works of art. The painter and the sculptor suggest as much poetry as can consist with their stern notions, and are always real enough to satisfy the demand for fact."

"But would not what you call your holiday be more pleasantly passed in making acquaintances? You could of course have easy access to the most distinguished society."

"I'm a bad Frenchman, my Lady, and speak not a word of German or Italian."

"English is very generally cultivated just now,--the persons best worth talking to can speak it."

"The restraint of a strange tongue, like the novelty of a court dress, is a sad detractor from all naturalness. At least, in my own little experience with strangers, I have failed to read anything of a man's character when he addressed me in a language not his own."

"And was it essential you should have read it?" asked Lady Grace, languidly.

"I am always more at my ease when I know the geography of the land I live in," said Dunn, smiling.

"I should say you have great gifts in that way,--I mean in deciphering character," said Lady Lackington.

"Your Ladyship flatters me. I have no pretensions of the kind. Once satisfied of the sincerity of those with whom I come into contact, I never strive to know more, nor have I the faculties to attempt more."

"But, in your wide-spread intercourse with life, do you not, insensibly as it were, become an adept in reading men's natures?"

"I don't think so, my Lady. The more one sees of life the simpler does it seem, not from any study of humanity, but by the easy fact that three or four motives sway the whole world. An unsupplied want of one kind or other--wealth, rank, distinction, affection, it may be--gives the entire impulse to a character, just as a passion imparts the expression to a face; and all the diversities of temperament, like those of countenance, are nothing but the impress of a want,--you may call it a wish. Now it may be," added he, and as he spoke he stole a glance, quick as lightning, at Lady Grace, "that such experiences are more common to men like myself,--men, I mean, who are intrusted with the charge of others'

interests; but assuredly I have no clew to character save in that one feature,--a want."

"But I want fifty thousand things," said Lady Lacking-ton. "I want a deal of money; I want that beautiful villa near Palermo, the 'Serra Novena;' I want that Arab pony Kratuloff rides in the park; I want, in short, everything that pleases me every hour of the day."

"These are not wants that make impulses, no more than a passing shower makes a climate," said Dunn. "What I speak of is that unceasing, unwearied desire that is with us in joy or sadness, that journeys with us and lives with us, mingling in every action, blending with every thought, and presenting to our minds a constant picture of ourselves under some wished-for aspect different from all we have ever known, where we are surrounded with other impulses and swayed by other passions, and yet still identically ourselves. Lady Grace apprehends me."

"Perhaps,--at least partly," said she, fanning herself and concealing her face.

"There are very few exempt from a temptation of this sort, or, if they be, it is because their minds are dissipated on various objects."

"I hate things to be called temptations, and snares, and the rest of it," said Lady Lackington; "it is a very tiresome cant. You may tell me while I am waiting for my fish-sauce at dinner, it is a temptation; but if you wish me really to understand the word, tell me of some wonderful speculation, some marvellous scheme for securing millions. Oh, dear Mr.

Dunn, you who really know the way, will you just show me the road to--I will be moderate--about twenty thousand pounds?"

"Nothing easier, my Lady, if you are disposed to risk forty."

"But I am not, sir. I have not the slightest intention to risk one hundred. I 'm not a gambler."

"And yet what your Ladyship points at is very like gambling."

"Pray place that word along with temptation, in the forbidden category; it is quite hateful to me."

"Have _you_ the same dislike to chance, Lady Grace?" said he, stealing a look at her face with some earnestness.

"No," said she, in a low voice; "it is all I have to look for."