“Cads, cads, damn them!” His face changed expression.  “I may rise to any height, queens may fall down and worship me, but I may never undo my birth.  Not to have been born a gentleman!  That is to say, of a long line—­a family with a history.  Not to be able to whisper, ’I may lose everything, all troubles may be mine, but the fact remains that I was born a gentleman!’ Those two men who cut me are lords.  What a delight in one’s life to have a name all to one’s self!” And then Mike lost himself in a maze of little dreams.  A gleam of mail; escutcheons and castles; a hawk flew from fingers fair; a lady clasped her hands when the lances shivered in the tourney; and Mike was the hero that persisted in the course of this shifting little dream.

The Brookes—­Sally and Maggie—­stopped to speak to him, and he went to lunch with them.  His interest in all they did and said was unbounded, and that he might not be able to reproach himself with waste of time, he contrived by hint and allusion to lay the foundation for a future intrigue with one of the girls.

Lily Young, however, had never been forgotten; she had been as constantly present in his mind as this sense of the sunshine and his own happy condition.  She had been parcel of and one with these but now; as he drove to see her, he separated her from the morning phenomena of his life, and began to think definitely of her.

Smiling, he called himself a brute, and regretted his failure.  But in her presence his cynicism was evanescent.  She sat on a little sofa, covered with an Indian shawl; behind her was a great bronze, the celebrated gift of a celebrated Rajah to her mother.  Mrs. Young had been on a tour in the East with her husband, and ever since her house had been frequented by decrepit old gentlemen interested in Arabi, and other matters which they spoke of as Eastern questions.

Lily looked at Mike under her eyes as she passed across the room to get him some tea, and they talked a little while.  Then some three or four great and very elderly historians entered, and she had to leave him; and feeling he could not prolong his visit he went, conscious of sensations of purity and some desire of goodness, if not for itself, for the grace that goodness brings.  He paid many visits in this house, but conversations with learned Buddhists seemed the only result; a tete-a-tete with Lily seemed impossible.  To his surprise he never met her in society, and his heart beat fast when one evening he heard she was expected; and for the first time forgetful of the multitude, and nervous as a school-boy in search of his first love, he sought her in the crowd.  He feared to remain with her, and it seemed to him he had accomplished much in asking her to come down to supper.  When talking to others his thoughts were with her, and his eyes followed her.  An inquisitive woman noted his agitation, and suspecting the cause, said, “I see, I see, and I think something may come of it.”  Even when Lily left he did not recover his ordinary humour, and about two in the morning, in sullen weariness and disappointment, he offered to drive Lady Helen home.