former generations in a day.  Be it as it may, he did not seem to know or notice that I was not myself:  he only seemed interested and absorbed.  I did not feel as if I were taxing his courtesy, and soon I recovered my self-possession and talked naturally:  my spirits rose, and my natural self-assertion returned to me.  I enjoyed looking at the women, watching their ways and listening to the sound of their voices.  It was a revelation of a new world to me, and I said as much to him.

“What in particular is it,” he said, “that strikes you so?”

“I think,” I answered, “it is the harmony of the whole effect.”

“A thorough-bred woman always produces an harmonious effect,” he said.

Something in his tone jarred me, and I said hastily, “I don’t think development should be sacrificed to harmony:  incompleteness is better than perfection sometimes.”

He smiled sweetly:  “Yes, but I am afraid we should hardly agree about the development of women, though I should like to hear you talk of it.”

“Why should we not discuss and disagree?”

“I do not like to disagree with a woman at all, especially with a woman whom I admire,” he said, bending his blue eyes on me with a look such as I had never seen before in a man’s eyes.  It was what I suppose would be called a chivalric look; and yet chivalry was only an improved barbarism.

Mrs. Fordyce came up just then, and introduced some gentlemen to me; and while they were talking Mr. Lawrence turned away.  In a few moments he was back again with a lovely-looking young girl on his arm, blushing and yet self-possessed, with the same exquisite simplicity of manner he has himself.  “My cousin Alice Wilton asks me to introduce her to you, Miss Linton,” he said.

I have always—­shall I confess it?—­patted young girls on the head:  this one I could no more have patronized than I could a statue of Diana.  She was very charming to look at as she stood beside her cousin, and yet—­No, I will make no exception:  she was charming in every way, and I felt more at my ease that a woman had been presented to me.

Mr. Lawrence put me in my carriage.  As he closed the door he said, “Your maid is not with you?”

I replied that I had none; on which he said to the driver, “Drive slowly:  I mean to walk as far as the hotel with the carriage.”

“Won’t you get in?” I cried from the window.

He seemed not to hear me, but started off at a rapid pace, and I gave up the attempt, wondering at what seemed to me an eccentric choice.  It was unnecessary for him to go with me at all, but I thought, “He has been, I suppose, brought up to think no woman can take care of herself.”  He was ready to open the door as I got out, and I longed to ask him why he had not driven with me; but I hesitated:  something tied my tongue, and in a moment he had said “Good-night,” and was gone with hasty steps into the darkness.  I must stop, I am so tired.