M. Grascour was a Belgian, about forty years old, who looked as though he were no more than thirty, except that his hair was in patches beginning to be a little gray.  He was in the government service of his country, well educated, and thoroughly a gentleman.  As is the case with many Belgians, he would have been taken to be an Englishman were his country not known.  He had dressed himself in English mirrors, living mostly with the English.  He spoke English so well that he would only be known to be a foreigner by the correctness of his language.  He was a man of singularly good temper, and there was running through all that he did somewhat of a chivalric spirit, which came from study rather than nature.  He had looked into things and seen whether they were good, or at any rate popular, and endeavored to grasp and to make his own whatever he found to be so.  He was hitherto unmarried, and was regarded generally by his friends as a non-marrying man.  But Florence Mountjoy was powerful over him, and he set to work to make her his wife.  He was intimate at the house of Sir Magnus, and saw, no doubt, that Anderson was doing the same thing.  But he saw also that Anderson did not succeed.  He had told himself from the first that if Anderson did succeed he would not wish to do so.  The girl who would be satisfied with Anderson would hardly content him.  He remained therefore quiet till he saw that Anderson had failed.  The young man at once took to an altered mode of life which was sufficiently marked.  He went, like Sir Proteus, ungartered.  Everything about him had of late “demonstrated a careless desolation.”  All this M. Grascour observed, and when he saw it he felt that his own time had come.

He took occasion at first to wait upon Lady Mountjoy.  He believed that to be the proper way of going to work.  He was very intimate with the Mountjoys, and was aware that his circumstances were known to them.  There was no reason, on the score of money, why he should not marry the niece of Sir Magnus.  He had already shown some attention to Florence, which, though it had excited no suspicion in her mind, had been seen and understood by her aunt; and it had been understood also by Mr. Anderson.  “That accursed Belgian!  If, after all, she should take up with him!  I shall tell her a bit of my mind if anything of that kind should occur.”

“My niece, M. Grascour!”

“Yes, my lady.”  M. Grascour had not quite got over the way of calling Lady Mountjoy “my lady.”  “It is presumption, I know.”

“Not at all.”

“I have not spoken to her.  Nor would I do so till I had first addressed myself to you or to her mother.  May I speak to Mrs. Mountjoy?”

“Oh, certainly.  I do not in the least know what the young lady’s ideas are.  She has been much admired here and elsewhere, and that may have turned her head.”

“I think not.”

“You may be the better judge, M. Grascour.”

“I think that Miss Mountjoy’s head has not been turned by any admiration.  She does not appear to be a young lady whose head would easily be turned.  It is her heart of which I am thinking.”  The interview ended by Lady Mountjoy passing the Belgian lover on to Mrs. Mountjoy.