“You mean that to be Lady Chiltern in the present tense, and Lady Brentford in the future, would be promotion for Violet Effingham in the past?”

“How hard you are, Violet!”

“Fancy,—­that it should come to this,—­that you should call me hard, Laura.  I should like to be your sister.  I should like well enough to be your father’s daughter.  I should like well enough to be Chiltern’s friend.  I am his friend.  Nothing that any one has ever said of him has estranged me from him.  I have fought for him till I have been black in the face.  Yes, I have,—­with my aunt.  But I am afraid to be his wife.  The risk would be so great.  Suppose that I did not save him, but that he brought me to shipwreck instead?”

“That could not be!”

“Could it not?  I think it might be so very well.  When I was a child they used to be always telling me to mind myself.  It seems to me that a child and a man need not mind themselves.  Let them do what they may, they can be set right again.  Let them fall as they will, you can put them on their feet.  But a woman has to mind herself;—­and very hard work it is when she has a dragon of her own driving her ever the wrong way.”

“I want to take you from the dragon.”

“Yes;—­and to hand me over to a griffin.”

“The truth is, Violet, that you do not know Oswald.  He is not a griffin.”

“I did not mean to be uncomplimentary.  Take any of the dangerous wild beasts you please.  I merely intend to point out that he is a dangerous wild beast.  I daresay he is noble-minded, and I will call him a lion if you like it better.  But even with a lion there is risk.”

“Of course there will be risk.  There is risk with every man,—­unless you will be contented with the prig you described.  Of course there would be risk with my brother.  He has been a gambler.”

“They say he is one still.”

“He has given it up in part, and would entirely at your instance.”

“And they say other things of him, Laura.”

“It is true.  He has had paroxysms of evil life which have well-nigh ruined him.”

“And these paroxysms are so dangerous!  Is he not in debt?”

“He is,—­but not deeply.  Every shilling that he owes would be paid;—­every shilling.  Mind, I know all his circumstances, and I give you my word that every shilling should be paid.  He has never lied,—­and he has told me everything.  His father could not leave an acre away from him if he would, and would not if he could.”

“I did not ask as fearing that.  I spoke only of a dangerous habit.  A paroxysm of spending money is apt to make one so uncomfortable.  And then—­”

“Well.”

“I don’t know why I should make a catalogue of your brother’s weaknesses.”

“You mean to say that he drinks too much?”

“I do not say so.  People say so.  The dragon says so.  And as I always find her sayings to be untrue, I suppose this is like the rest of them.”