"What would you have me do, Lady
Caroline? You sneer at the notion of my
remaining with Lord Hetherington! Surely
you would not have me go to Berlin?"

"I never sneer at anything, my dear
Mr. Joyce! Sneering shows very bad
breeding! I say distinctly that I think
you would be mad to fritter away your
days in your present position. Nor do I
think, under circumstances, you ought to
go to Berlin. It would have done very
well as a stepping-stone had things turned
out differently, but now you would be
always drawing odious comparisons
between your solitary lot and the 'what
might have been,' as Owen Meredith so
sweetly puts it."

"Where, then, shall I go?"

"To London! Where else should any
one go with a desire to make a mark in the
world, and energy and determination to
aid him in accomplishing his purpose?
And this is your case. Ah, you may shake
your head, but I tell you it is! You think
differently just now, but when once you are
there, 'in among the throngs of men,' you
will acknowledge it! Why, when you
were there, at the outset of your career,
utterly friendless and alone, as you have told
me, you found friends and work, and now
that you are known, and by a certain few
appreciated, do you think it will be
otherwise?"

"You are marvellously inspiriting, Lady
Caroline, and I can never be sufficiently
grateful for the advice you have given me,
—better still for the manner in which you
have given it. But, suppose I do go to
London, what—in the cant phrase of the
day—what am I to 'go in for'?"

"Newspaper writing—what do they call
it? journalism, at first, the profession in
which you were doing so well when you
came here. That, if I mistake not, will
in due course lead to something else, about
which we will talk at some future time."

"That is just what I was coming to,
Lady Caroline! You will allow me to see
you sometimes?"

"I shall be always deeply interested in
your welfare, Mr. Joyce, and anxious to
know how you progress! Oh, yes, I hope
both to see and hear a great deal of you.
Besides, Lord Hetherington may feel
inclined to take up the Chronicles again;
he is rather off them just now, I know—and
then you can give your successor some
very valuable hints!"

When Lady Caroline Mansergh was alone
in her own room after this conversation,
she reflected long and deeply upon the
effect which the receipt of that letter would
probably produce upon Walter Joyce, and
was sufficiently interested to analyse her
own feelings in regard to it. Was she
sorry or glad that the intended match had
been broken off, and that Joyce was now,
so far as his heart was concerned, a free
man? That he was free she was certain;
that he would never return to the old
allegiance she was positive. Lady Caroline
in her worldly experience had frequently
come across cases of the kind, where the
tender regret which at first forbade any
harsh mention, scarcely any harsh thought
of the false one, had in a very short time
given place to a feeling of mortified vanity
and baffled desire, which prompted the
frankest outpourings, and made itself heard
in the bitterest objurgations. The question
was, how it affected her. On the whole,
she thought that she was pleased at the
result. She did not attempt to hide from
herself that she had a certain regard for
this young man, though of the nature of
that regard she had scarcely troubled
herself to inquire. One thing she knew, that
it was very different from what she had at
first intended it should be, from what in the
early days of their acquaintance she had
allowed it to be. Of course with such a
man flirtation, in its ordinary sense, was
out of the question; she would as soon have
thought of flirting with the Great Pyramid
as with Walter Joyce. In its place there
had existed a kind of friendly interest, but
Lady Caroline was fully cognisant that, on
her side, that friendly interest had been
deepening and strengthening until, after a
little self-examination, she felt forced to
confess to herself that it would bear another
name. Then came the question, and if it
did, what matter? She had never
particularly set herself up as a strict observant
of the conventionalities or the fetish worship
of Society; on the contrary, her conduct in
that respect had been rather iconoclastic.
There need be no surprise, therefore, on the
part of the world if she chose to marry out
of what was supposed to be her "set" and
station in Society; and if there had been, she
was quite strong-minded enough to laugh at
it. But to a woman of Lady Caroline's
refinement it was necessary that her husband
should be a gentleman, and it was
necessary for her pride that, if not her equal in
rank, he should not merely be her superior
in talent, but should be admitted to be so.
Under the fresh disposition of circumstances
she saw no reason why this should not be.