with duchesses and countesses, and he had made, once or twice, a perilously near approach to cynicism in declaring that the disinterestedness of women had been overrated.  On the whole, he had tempered audacity with modesty; and it is but fair to him now to say explicitly that he would have been incapable of taking advantage of his present large allowance of familiarity to make love to the younger of his handsome cousins.  Felix had grown up among traditions in the light of which such a proceeding looked like a grievous breach of hospitality.  I have said that he was always happy, and it may be counted among the present sources of his happiness that he had as regards this matter of his relations with Gertrude a deliciously good conscience.  His own deportment seemed to him suffused with the beauty of virtue—­a form of beauty that he admired with the same vivacity with which he admired all other forms.

“I think that if you marry,” said Mr. Wentworth presently, “it will conduce to your happiness.”

“Sicurissimo!” Felix exclaimed; and then, arresting his brush, he looked at his uncle with a smile.  “There is something I feel tempted to say to you.  May I risk it?”

Mr. Wentworth drew himself up a little.  “I am very safe; I don’t repeat things.”  But he hoped Felix would not risk too much.

Felix was laughing at his answer.

“It ’s odd to hear you telling me how to be happy.  I don’t think you know yourself, dear uncle.  Now, does that sound brutal?”

The old man was silent a moment, and then, with a dry dignity that suddenly touched his nephew:  “We may sometimes point out a road we are unable to follow.”

“Ah, don’t tell me you have had any sorrows,” Felix rejoined.  “I did n’t suppose it, and I did n’t mean to allude to them.  I simply meant that you all don’t amuse yourselves.”

“Amuse ourselves?  We are not children.”

“Precisely not!  You have reached the proper age.  I was saying that the other day to Gertrude,” Felix added.  “I hope it was not indiscreet.”

“If it was,” said Mr. Wentworth, with a keener irony than Felix would have thought him capable of, “it was but your way of amusing yourself.  I am afraid you have never had a trouble.”

“Oh, yes, I have!” Felix declared, with some spirit; “before I knew better.  But you don’t catch me at it again.”

Mr. Wentworth maintained for a while a silence more expressive than a deep-drawn sigh.  “You have no children,” he said at last.

“Don’t tell me,” Felix exclaimed, “that your charming young people are a source of grief to you!”

“I don’t speak of Charlotte.”  And then, after a pause, Mr. Wentworth continued, “I don’t speak of Gertrude.  But I feel considerable anxiety about Clifford.  I will tell you another time.”