Thus it was arranged that Florence should be left in Mr. Anderson\'s way. Mr. Anderson, as Sir Magnus had said, was not always out riding. There were moments in which even he was off duty. And Sir Magnus contrived to ride a little earlier than usual so that he should get back while the carriage was still out on its rounds. Lady Mountjoy certainly did her duty, taking Mrs. Mountjoy with her daily, and generally Miss Abbott, so that Florence was, as it were, left to the mercies of Mr. Anderson. She could, of course, shut herself up in her bedroom, but things had not as yet become so bad as that. Mr. Anderson had not made himself terrible to her. She did not, in truth, fear Mr. Anderson at all, who was courteous in his manner and complimentary in his language, and she came at this time to the conclusion that if Mr. Anderson continued his pursuit of her she would tell him the exact truth of the case. As a gentleman, and as a young man, she thought that he would sympathize with her. The one enemy whom she did dread was Lady Mountjoy. She too had felt that her aunt could "take her skin off her," as Sir Magnus had said. She had not heard the words, but she knew that it was so, and her dislike to Lady Mountjoy was in proportion. It cannot be said that she was afraid. She did not intend to leave her skin in her aunt\'s hands. For every inch of skin taken she resolved to have an inch in return. She was not acquainted with the expressive mode of language which Sir Magnus had adopted, but she was prepared for all such attacks. For Sir Magnus himself, since he had given up the letter to her, she did feel some regard.

Behind the British minister\'s house, which, though entitled to no such name, was generally called the Embassy, there was a large garden, which, though not much used by Sir Magnus or Lady Mountjoy, was regarded as a valuable adjunct to the establishment. Here Florence betook herself for exercise, and here Mr. Anderson, having put off the muddy marks of his riding, found her one afternoon. It must be understood that no young man was ever more in earnest than Mr. Anderson. He, too, looking through the glass which had been prepared for him by Sir Magnus, thought that he saw in the not very far distant future a Mrs. Hugh Anderson driving a pair of gray ponies along the boulevard and he was much pleased with the sight. It reached to the top of his ambition. Florence was to his eyes really the sort of a girl whom a man in his position ought to marry. A secretary of legation in a small foreign capital cannot do with a dowdy wife, as may a clerk, for instance, in the Foreign Office. A secretary of legation,—the second secretary, he told himself,—was bound, if he married at all, to have a pretty and distinguée wife. He knew all about the intricacies which had fallen in a peculiar way into his own hand. Mr. Blow might have married a South Sea Islander, and would have been none the worse as regarded his official duties. Mr. Blow did not want the services of a wife in discovering and reporting all the secrets of the Belgium iron trade. There was no intricacy in that, no nicety. There was much of what, in his lighter moments, Mr. Anderson called "sweat." He did not pretend to much capacity for such duties; but in his own peculiar walk he thought that he was great. But it was very fatiguing, and he was sure that a wife was necessary to him. There were little niceties which none but a wife could perform. He had a great esteem for Sir Magnus. Sir Magnus was well thought of by all the court, and by the foreign minister at Brussels. But Lady Mountjoy was really of no use. The beginning and the end of it all with her was to show herself in a carriage. It was incumbent upon him, Anderson, to marry.

He was loving enough, and very susceptible. He was too susceptible, and he knew his own fault, and he was always on guard against it,—as behooved a young man with such duties as his. He was always falling in love, and then using his diplomatic skill in avoiding the consequences. He had found out that though one girl had looked so well under waxlight she did not endure the wear and tear of the day. Another could not be always graceful, or, though she could talk well enough during a waltz, she had nothing to say for herself at three o\'clock in the morning. And he was driven to calculate that he would be wrong to marry a girl without a shilling. "It is a kind of thing that a man cannot afford to do unless he\'s sure of his position," he had said on such an occasion to Montgomery Arbuthnot, alluding especially to his brother\'s state of health. When Mr. Anderson spoke of not being sure of his position he was always considered to allude to his brother\'s health. In this way he had nearly got his little boat on to the rocks more than once, and had given some trouble to Sir Magnus. But now he was quite sure. "It\'s all there all round," he had said to Arbuthnot more than once. Arbuthnot said that it was there—"all round, all round." Waxlight and daylight made no difference to her. She was always graceful. "Nobody with an eye in his head can doubt that," said Anderson. "I should think not, by Jove!" replied Arbuthnot. "And for talking,—you never catch her out; never." "I never did, certainly," said Arbuthnot, who, as third secretary, was obedient and kind-hearted. "And then look at her money. Of course a fellow wants something to help him on. My position is so uncertain that I cannot do without it." "Of course not." "Now, with some girls it\'s so deuced hard to find out. You hear that a girl has got money, but when the time comes it depends on the life of a father who doesn\'t think of dying;—damme, doesn\'t think of it."

"Those fellows never do," said Arbuthnot. "But here, you see, I know all about it. When she\'s twenty-four,—only twenty-four,—she\'ll have ten thousand pounds of her own. I hate a mercenary fellow." "Oh yes; that\'s beastly." "Nobody can say that of me. Circumstanced as I am, I want something to help to keep the pot boiling. She has got it,—quite as much as I want,—quite, and I know all about it without the slightest doubt in the world." For the small loan of fifteen hundred pounds Sir Magnus paid the full value of the interest and deficient security. "Sir Magnus tells me that if I\'ll only stick to her I shall be sure to win. There\'s some fellow in England has just touched her heart,—just touched it, you know." "I understand," said Arbuthnot, looking very wise. "He is not a fellow of very much account," said Anderson; "one of those handsome fellows without conduct and without courage." "I\'ve known lots of \'em," said Arbuthnot. "His name is Annesley," said Anderson. "I never saw him in my life, but that\'s what Sir Magnus says. He has done something awfully disreputable. I don\'t quite understand what it is, but it\'s something which ought to make him unfit to be her husband. Nobody knows the world better than Sir Magnus, and he says that it is so." "Nobody does know the world better than Sir Magnus," said Arbuthnot. And so that conversation was brought to an end.

One day soon after this he caught her walking in the garden. Her mother and Miss Abbot were still out with Lady Mountjoy in the carriage, and Sir Magnus had retired after the fatigue of his ride to sleep for half an hour before dinner. "All alone, Miss Mountjoy?" he said.

"Yes, alone, Mr. Anderson. I\'m never in better company."

"So I think; but then if I were here you wouldn\'t be all alone, would you?"

"Not if you were with me."

"That\'s what I mean. But yet two people may be alone, as regards the world at large. Mayn\'t they?"

"I don\'t understand the nicety of language well enough to say. We used to have a question among us when we were children whether a wild beast could howl in an empty cavern. It\'s the same sort of thing."

"Why shouldn\'t he?"

"Because the cavern would not be empty if the wild beast were in it. Did you ever see a girl bang an egg against a wall in a stocking, and then look awfully surprised because she had smashed it?"

"I don\'t understand the joke."

"She had been told she couldn\'t break an egg in an empty stocking. Then she was made to look in, and there was the broken egg for her pains. I don\'t know what made me tell you that story."

"It\'s a very good story. I\'ll get Miss Abbott to do it to-night. She believes everything."

"And everybody? Then she\'s a happy woman."

"I wish you\'d believe everybody."

"So I do;—nearly everybody. There are some inveterate liars whom nobody can believe."

"I hope I am not regarded as one."

"You? certainly not. If anybody were to speak of you as such behind your back no one would take your part more loyally than I. But nobo............