’Miss Penrhys retires to her native Wales; Jorian and I on to London, to the Continent.  Plinlimmon guard us all!  I send you our local newspapers.  That I cut entrechats is false.  It happens to be a thing I could do, and not an Englishman in England except myself; only I did not do it.  I did appear in what I was educated to believe was the evening suit of a gentleman, and I cannot perceive the immodesty of showing my leg.  A dress that is not indecent, and is becoming to me, and is the dress of my fathers, I wear, and I impose it on the generation of my sex.  However, I dined Hickson of the Fourth Estate (Jorian considers him hungry enough to eat up his twentieth before he dies—­I forget the wording of the mot), that he might know I was without rancour in the end, as originally I had been without any intention of purchasing his allegiance.  He offered me his columns; he wished me luck with the heiress; by his Gods, he swore he worshipped entrechats, and held a silk leg the most admirable work of the manufactures.  “Sir, you’re a gentleman,” says he; “you’re a nobleman, sir; you ’re a prince, you ’re a star of the first magnitude.”  Cries Jorian, “Retract that, scum! you see nothing large but what you dare to think neighbours you,” and quarrels the inebriate dog.  And this is the maker and destroyer of reputations in his day!  I study Hickson as a miraculous engine of the very simplest contrivance; he is himself the epitome of a verdict on his period.  Next day he disclaimed in his opposition penny sheet the report of the entrechats, and “the spectators laughing consumedly,” and sent me (as I had requested him to do) the names of his daughters, to whom I transmit little comforting presents, for if they are nice children such a parent must afflict them.

’Cultivate Lady Wilts.  You have made an impression.  She puts you forward as a good specimen of our young men.  ’Hem! madam.

’But, my dear boy, as I said, we cannot revive the past.  I acknowledge it.  Bath rebukes my last fit of ambition, and the experience is very well worth the expense.  You have a mind, Richie, for discussing outlay, upon which I congratulate you, so long as you do not overlook equivalents.  The system of the world is barter varied by robbery.  Show that you have something in hand, and you enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you were not robbed.  I pledge you my word to it—­I shall not repeat Bath.  And mark you, an heiress is never compromised.  I am not, I hope, responsible for every creature caught up in my circle of attraction.  Believe me, dear boy, I should consult you, and another one, estimable beyond mortal speech! if I had become involved—­impossible!  No; I am free of all fresh chains, because of the old ones.  Years will not be sufficient for us when you and I once begin to talk in earnest, when I open!  To resume—­so I leave Bath with a light conscience.  Mixed with pleasant recollections is the transient regret that you were not a spectator