ability to flit and flirt and flatter womankind without ever allowing his heart to become entangled. she stopped; then continued in a lower tone.

Sam
Sam.??Charles smiled back.??Well. the cadmium-yellow flowers so dense they almost hid the green. But I live in the age of Alain Robbe-Grillet and Roland Barthes; if this is a novel. and could not. She frowned and stared at her deep-piled carpet.????That is what I meant to convey.??He wished he could see her face. ??I recognize Bentham. Darwin should be exhibited in a cage in the zoological gardens.?? Mrs. either historically or presently. Ernestina began to cry again; then dried her eyes.??There passed a tiny light in Mary??s eyes. since its strata are brittle and have a tendency to slide. or he held her arm. Mrs. He sensed that Mrs. Ernestina let it be known that she had found ??that Mr. half intended for his absentmindedness.??Miss Woodruff. and seemed to hesi-tate. Did not see dearest Charles. with no sound but the lowing of a calf from some distant field above and inland; the clapped wings and cooings of the wood pigeons; and the barely perceptible wash of the tranquil sea far through the trees below. And there was her reserve.

The result. a branch broken underfoot. Forgive me. She recalled that Sarah had not lived in Lyme until recently; and that she could therefore. as you will have noticed.??????From what you said??????This book is about the living. and someone??plainly not Sarah??had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree??s stem. a stiff hand under her elbow. and judicious. arklike on its stocks. ??You will do nothing of the sort! That is blasphemy.??They stopped. giving the name of another inn. Their coming together was fraught with almost as many obstacles as if he had been an Eskimo and she. as if. There was nothing fortuitous or spontaneous about these visits. .??Expec?? you will. she may be high-spirited. ??I must not detain you longer. Talbot provided an interminable letter of reference. one that obliged Charles to put his arm round Ernestina??s waist to support her.????If you ??ad the clothes. And it??s like jumping a jarvey over a ten-foot wall. Tranter smiled. noting and grateful.

??Has an Irishman a choice???Charles acknowledged with a gesture that he had not; then offered his own reason for being a Liberal. The snobs?? struggle was much more with the aspirate; a fierce struggle. Mr. I know that he is. then turned back to the old lady. If he returns. Portland Bill. Tussocks of grass provided foothold; and she picked her way carefully. Most deserving of your charity.?? At that very same moment.He knew that nulla species nova was rubbish; yet he saw in the strata an immensely reassuring orderliness in existence. however. look at this. He found a way down to the foot of the bluff and began to search among the scree for his tests. She looked towards the two figures below and then went on her way towards Lyme. Hus-bands could often murder their wives??and the reverse??and get away with it. so pic-turesquely rural; and perhaps this exorcizes the Victorian horrors that took place there. Gladraeli and Mr. Fortunately none of these houses overlooked the junction of cart track and lane. Breeding and self-knowledge. We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words. they cannot think that. Their hands met. Mrs. but her real intelligence belonged to a rare kind; one that would certainly pass undetected in any of our modern tests of the faculty. rich in arsenic.

I doubt if they were heard. But the sentiment behind them was understood when the man came down with his bags and claimed that he had. When Mrs. To claim that love can only be Satyr-shaped if there is no immortality of the soul is clearly a panic flight from Freud. he had one disappointment. She was a governess. yellowing.?? a bow-fronted second-floor study that looked out over the small bay between the Cobb Gate and the Cobb itself; a room. you bear.??Shall I continue?????You read most beautifully. They had begun by discussing their respective posts; the merits and defects of Mr.??You must admit. He wore stout nailed boots and canvas gaiters that rose to encase Norfolk breeches of heavy flannel. The Creator is all-seeing and all-wise. If he does not return. There even came. Charles said nothing. A ??gay.Again and again. along the beach under Ware Cleeves for his destination.?? The vicar was conscious that he was making a poor start for the absent defendant. and certainly not wisdom. The cart track eventually ran out into a small lane. Fairley. Poulteney. my knowledge of the spoken tongue is not good.

he was welcome to as much milk as he could drink. indeed. of limitation. when she was before him. and twice as many tears as before began to fall. as a Greek observed some two and a half thousand years ago. The family had certainly once owned a manor of sorts in that cold green no-man??s-land between Dartmoor and Exmoor. But each time he looked nervously up for a sneer. and she smiled at him.??The vicar felt snubbed; and wondered what would have happened had the Good Samaritan come upon Mrs.. Ernestina delivered a sidelong.Charles stood in the sunlight. Tranter. the scents. and pray for a few minutes (a fact that Mrs. But no doubt he told her he was one of our unfortunate coreligionists in that misguided country. her right arm thrown back. . And they will never understand the reason for my crime. it is almost certain that she would simply have turned and gone away??more. clapped on the back by the papas and simpered at by the girls. and forgave Charles everything for such a labor of Hercules. which the arbiters of the best English male fashion had declared a shade vulgar??that is. His grandfa-ther the baronet had fallen into the second of the two great categories of English country squires: claret-swilling fox hunters and scholarly collectors of everything under the sun.??This abruptly secular descent did not surprise the vicar.

I am the French Lieutenant??s Whore.Traveling no longer attracted him; but women did.. . I shall never have children. from previous references. Talbot did not take her back?????Madam. When he discovered what he had shot. person is expunged from your heart. she would find his behavior incomprehensible and be angry with him; at best. Doctor Grogan was not financially very dependent on Mrs.The grog was excellent. Tranter and Ernestina in the Assembly Rooms.Ernestina avoided his eyes. the man is tranced. the tall Charles with his vague resem-blance to the late Prince Consort and the thin little doctor. moving westward. Poachers slunk in less guiltily than elsewhere after the pheasants and rabbits; one day it was discovered. But though one may keep the wolves from one??s door. Above all. Almost envies them. English religion too bigoted. the goldfinch was given an instant liberty; where-upon it flew to Mrs. Now will you please leave your hiding place? There is no impropriety in our meeting in this chance way. both women were incipient sadists; and it was to their advantage to tolerate each other..

??You haven??t reconsidered my suggestion??that you should leave this place?????If I went to London.??He left a silence. He began to feel in a better humor. as a naval officer himself. but because of that fused rare power that was her essence??understanding and emotion. and the town as well. and anguishing; an outrage in them. he was generally supposed to be as excellent a catch in the river Marriage as the salmon he sat down to that night had been in the river Axe. It was very clear that any moment Mrs.All except Sarah. as faint as the fragrance of February violets?? that denied. bent in a childlike way. ??A young person. She was not wearing nailed boots. and he turned away. I apologize.??I??m a Derby duck. Since we know Mrs. Miss Woodruff. But his wrong a??s and h??s were not really comic; they were signs of a social revolution. to be exact. or tried to hide; that is. No romance. that Charles had entered when he had climbed the path from the shore at Pinhay Bay; and it was this same place whose eastern half was called Ware Commons. your feet are on the Rock. you know.

we shall see in a moment. thrown myself on your mercy in this way if I were not desperate?????I don??t doubt your despair. silent co-presence in the darkness that mattered. that the world had been created at nine o??clock on October 26th.??Sam tested the blade of the cutthroat razor on the edge of his small thumb. ??Monsieur Varguennes was a person of consider-able charm. a brilliant fleck of sulphur.But the most abominable thing of all was that even outside her house she acknowledged no bounds to her authority.?? He added.Charles and his ladies were in the doomed building for a concert. I think he was a little like the lizard that changes color with its surround-ings. I am sure a much happier use could be found for them elsewhere. The air was full of their honeyed musk. Mrs. He died there a year later. but she was not to be stopped. more Grecian. There was the pretext of a bowl of milk at the Dairy; and many inviting little paths. at any subsequent place or time. at ease in all his travel.. Instead they were a bilious leaden green??one that was. but not that it was one whose walls and passages were eternally changing. I should like to see that palace of piety burned to the ground and its owner with it. pray?????I should have thought you might have wished to prolong an opportunity to hold my arm without impropriety. ??I thank you.

with being prepared for every eventuality. Ernestina wanted a husband. Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down. seemingly across a plain. Mr. still laugh-ing. But then.??You cannot.When the front door closed. ??It came to seem to me as if I were allowed to live in paradise. among his not-too-distant ancestors. But Sarah changed all that. each time she took her throne. he did not. . His amazement was natural. ma??m. But I find myself suddenly like a man in the sharp spring night. superior to most.?? But the doctor was brutally silent. this is unconsciously what attracted Charles to them; he had scientific reasons. Charles knew nothing of the beavered German Jew quietly working.Fairley. I fear I addressed you in a most impolite manner. But he spoke quickly. By not exhibiting your shame.

but it will do. let me interpose. obscurely wronged. social stagnation; they knew. if you wish to change your situation. ??Now. will it not???And so they kissed.Charles and his ladies were in the doomed building for a concert. She slept badly. You will recall the French barque??I think she hailed from Saint Malo??that was driven ashore under Stonebarrow in the dreadful gale of last December? And you will no doubt recall that three of the crew were saved and were taken in by the people of Charmouth? Two were simple sailors.Not a man. The programme was unrelievedly religious. the sense of solitude I spoke of just now swept back over me. which was considered by Mrs.There were other items: an ability??formidable in itself and almost unique??not often to get on Mrs. but Charles had also the advantage of having read??very much in private. since she giggled after she was so grossly abused by the stableboy. He spoke no English. but there seemed to Charles something rather infra dig.. such as that monstrous kiss she had once seen planted on Mary??s cheeks.There would have been a place in the Gestapo for the lady; she had a way of interrogation that could reduce the sturdiest girls to tears in the first five minutes. For Charles had faults. We meet here. or being talked to. I have seen a good deal of life.

where a russet-sailed and westward-headed brig could be seen in a patch of sunlight some five miles out. of course; but she had never even thought of doing such a thing.????Then permit her to have her wish. There was no artifice there. I did not see her. Charles rose and looked out of the window. Almost envies them. At least the deadly dust was laid. Charles thought of that look as a lance; and to think so is of course not merely to de-scribe an object but the effect it has.??I will do as you wish.????Captain Talbot. You see there are parallels. It was now one o??clock. But his feet strode on all the faster. wicked creature. You are not too fond. was out. and yet so remote??as remote as some abbey of Theleme. until he was certain they had gone. Ernestina out of irritation with herself??for she had not meant to bring such a snub on Charles??s head. if you had been watching. They sensed that current accounts of the world were inadequate; that they had allowed their windows on reality to become smeared by convention. Her gray eyes and the paleness of her skin only enhanced the delicacy of the rest. ma??m. ??Another dress??? he suggested diffidently.????I trust you??re using the adjective in its literal sense.

To this distin-guished local memory Charles had paid his homage??and his cash.????My dear lady. my beloved!??Then faintly o??er her lips a wan smile moved. It had always been considered common land until the enclosure acts; then it was encroached on. you say. Then she looked away.Having duly and maliciously allowed her health and cheer-fulness to register on the invalid. and walk out alone); and above all on the subject of Ernestina??s being in Lyme at all. for the very next lunchtime he had the courage to complain when Ernestina proposed for the nineteenth time to discuss the furnishings of his study in the as yet unfound house. Sarah stood shyly. It was not a pretty face. who made more; for no young male ever set foot in the drawing room of the house overlooking Hyde Park who had not been as well vetted as any modern security department vets its atomic scientists. since the Kensington house was far too small and the lease of the Belgravia house. the face for 1867. with a smile in his mind. One look at Millie and her ten miserable siblings should have scorched the myth of the Happy Swain into ashes; but so few gave that look.Sarah went towards the lectern in the corner of the room. He turned to his man. as if to keep out of view. was the father of modern geology. And he had always asked life too many questions. so to speak. as essential to it as the divinity of Christ to theology. the solemn young paterfamili-as; then smiled indulgently at his own faces and euphoria; poised. But to a less tax-paying. and traveled much; she knew he was eleven years older than herself; she knew he was attractive to women.

with the declining sun on his back. Such a path is difficult to reascend. He felt himself in that brief instant an unjust enemy; both pierced and deservedly diminished. of women lying asleep on sunlit ledges. although she was very soon wildly determined. eight feet tall; its flowers that bloom a month earlier than any-where else in the district. But there was God to be accounted to. a little irregularly.. the same indigo dress with the white collar. Its sorrow welled out of it as purely. but it will do. I think it made me see more clearly . yet he tries to pretend that he does. there??s a good fellow. sweating copiously under the abominable flannel. westwards.??Charles glanced cautiously at him; but there was no mis-taking a certain ferocity of light in the doctor??s eyes. Charles wished he could draw. to a patch of turf known as Donkey??s Green in the heart of the woods and there celebrate the solstice with dancing. He mentioned her name.??Mrs. For the gentleman had set his heart on having an arbore-tum in the Undercliff.?? Charles too looked at the ground. Woman..

she turned fully to look at Charles. Why Sam. he thought she was about to say more.Sam first fell for her because she was a summer??s day after the drab dollymops and gays* who had constituted his past sexual experience. what was what . and he was therefore in a state of extreme sexual frustration.Mrs. arid scents in his nostrils.??Never mind now. And I know how bored you are by anything that has happened in the last ninety million years. Since then she has waited. The colors of the young lady??s clothes would strike us today as distinctly strident; but the world was then in the first fine throes of the discovery of aniline dyes. the liassic fossils were plentiful and he soon found himself completely alone. I understand she has been doing a littleneedlework. I could endure it no longer. He saw that she was offended; again he had that unaccountable sensation of being lanced. He unbuttoned his coat and took out his silver half hunter. Talbot??s a dove. She was. like all land that has never been worked or lived on by man. In one place he had to push his way through a kind of tunnel of such foliage; at the far end there was a clearing. there were footsteps. I am confident????He broke off as she looked quickly round at the trees behind them. I cannot explain.To tell the truth he was not really in the mood for anything; strangely there had come ragingly upon him the old travel-lust that he had believed himself to have grown out of those last years. At Cam-bridge.

even from a distance. ??I interrupted your story.??Charles accepted the rebuke; and seized his opportunity. a swift sideways and upward glance from those almost exophthalmic dark-brown eyes with their clear whites: a look both timid and forbidding. she was governess there when it happened.Sam. I ate the supper that was served. I hope so; those visions of the contented country laborer and his brood made so fashionable by George Morland and his kind (Birket Foster was the arch criminal by 1867) were as stupid and pernicious a sentimentalization.Of the three young women who pass through these pages Mary was. by which he means. she might even have closed the door quietly enough not to wake the sleepers. because.??This phrase had become as familiar to Mrs. let open the floodgates to something far more serious than the undermining of the Biblical account of the origins of man; its deepest implications lay in the direction of determinism and behaviorism. as mere stupidity. Spiders that should be hibernating run over the baking November rocks; blackbirds sing in December. a restless baa-ing and mewling.????And you were no longer cruel. But in his second year there he had drifted into a bad set and ended up. ancestry??with one ear. She was a plow-man??s daughter.????Which means you were most hateful. this proof. at ease in all his travel. some possibility she symbolized. and then up to the levels where the flint strata emerged.

??Will you come to see me??when dear Tina has gone??? For a second then. once engaged upon.Sam had met Mary in Coombe Street that morning; and innocently asked if the soot might be delivered in an hour??s time.The doctor put a finger on his nose. He himself belonged un-doubtedly to the fittest; but the human fittest had no less certain responsibility towards the less fit. Sam. Charles had found himself curious to know what political views the doctor held; and by way of getting to the subject asked whom the two busts that sat whitely among his host??s books might be of. that Mrs. and found herself as if faced with the muzzle of a cannon. No tick.??This abruptly secular descent did not surprise the vicar.????And are scientific now? Shall we make the perilous de-scent?????On the way back.??If you take her in. Grogan called his ??cabin. in a bedroom overlooking the Seine. he had lost all sense of propor-tion. but she had also a wide network of relations and acquaint-ances at her command. Usually she came to recover from the season; this year she was sent early to gather strength for the marriage. Dis-raeli and Mr. where he wondered why he had not had the presence of mind to ask which path he was to take.She murmured.. but because of that fused rare power that was her essence??understanding and emotion. Because you are not a wom-an. Besides.??Is she young?????It??s too far to tell.

But he swallowed his grief. Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy. thus a hundred-hour week.????A total stranger . I attend Mrs. He had found out much about me. still laugh-ing.?? And the doctor permitted his Irish nostrils two little snorts of triumphant air. miss.?? He did not want to be teased on this subject. . it cannot be a novel in the modern sense of the word. In any case. my dear fellow. I could pretend to you that he overpowered me. into love. . who walk in the law of the Lord. Part of her hair had become loose and half covered her cheek.??????Tis all talk in this ol?? place. I keep it on for my dear husband??s sake. ??I think that was not necessary. After some days he returned to France.The mid-century had seen a quite new form of dandy appear on the English scene; the old upper-class variety.????And begad we wouldn??t be the only ones. Her loosened hair fell over the page.

. Poulteney. Poulteney??then still audibly asleep??would have wished paradise to flood in upon her. Most deserving of your charity. but the painter had drawn on imagination for the other qualities. perhaps I should have written ??On the Horizontality of Exis-tence. Eyebright and birdsfoot starred the grass. Then one morning Miss Sarah did not appear at the Marlborough House matins; and when the maid was sent to look for her. Sarah took upon herself much of the special care of the chlorotic girl needed. Sam felt he was talking too much. They stood some fifteen feet apart. that is.??She stared out to sea for a moment. Three flights down. Poulteney had two obsessions: or two aspects of the same obsession.Very gently. The chalk walls behind this little natural balcony made it into a sun trap. In any case. impertinent nose. It was a very simple secret. She was a plow-man??s daughter.?? Charles could not see Sam??s face.??She looked up at him again then. Tina. I ??eard you ??ave. so out-of-the-way.

that their sense of isolation??and if the weather be bad. Charles. existed; but they were explicable as creatures so depraved that they overcame their innate woman??s disgust at the carnal in their lust for money. That he had expecta-tions of recovering the patrimony he and his brother had lost. and she was soon as adept at handling her as a skilled cardinal. I think we are not to stand on such ceremony. lying at his feet. I apologize.?? But the doctor was brutally silent. while his now free one swept off his ^ la mode near-brimless topper.. and to Tina??s sotto voce wickednesses with the other. An exceed-ingly gloomy gray in color. Poulteney??s in-terest in Charles was probably no greater than Charles??s in her; but she would have been mortally offended if he had not been dragged in chains for her to place her fat little foot on??and pretty soon after his arrival.They saw in each other a superiority of intelligence. but because of that fused rare power that was her essence??understanding and emotion. a little posy of crocuses. ??It??s no matter. one may think. It is not only that he has begun to gain an autonomy;I must respect it. It came to within a week of the time when he should take his leave.??Do but think. to whom it had become familiar some three years previously. the problem of what to do after your supper is easily solved.[* A ??dollymop?? was a maidservant who went in for spare-time prosti-tution.??Charles had known women??frequently Ernestina herself?? contradict him playfully.

by some ingenuous coquetry. which deprived her of the pleasure of demanding why they had not been anticipated. were shortsighted. Tussocks of grass provided foothold; and she picked her way carefully. here and now. ??Of course not. It is in this aspect that the Cobb seems most a last bulwark??against all that wild eroding coast to the west. we shall never be yours. Were no longer what they were.. of course; but she had never even thought of doing such a thing. I shall be most happy . Sarah??s father had three times seen it with his own eyes; and returned to the small farm he rented from the vast Meriton estate to brood. noting and grateful. She offered to do so. one of those charming heads of the young Victoria that still occasionally turn up in one??s change. Strangers were strange. She made sure other attractive young men were always present; and did not single the real prey out for any special favors or attention. at the foot of the little bluff whose flat top was the meadow. as if he had miraculously survived a riot or an avalanche. sought for an exit line.????And what was the subject of your conversation?????Your father ventured the opinion that Mr. standing there below him.

but a man of excellent princi-ples and highly respected in that neighborhood. When I was your age .??He glanced sharply down. yes. The old man would grumble. Incomprehension. ??Whose exact nature I am still ignorant of. But such kindness . look at this. ??And Mr. with no sound but the lowing of a calf from some distant field above and inland; the clapped wings and cooings of the wood pigeons; and the barely perceptible wash of the tranquil sea far through the trees below. however kind-hearted. her dark hair falling across her face and almost hiding it. trying to imagine why she should not wish it known that she came among these innocent woods. since Mrs. as if really to keep the conversation going. Mr. pages of close handwriting. Mrs. she saw through the follies. No occasion on which the stopping and staring took place was omitted; but they were not frequent. Who is this French lieutenant?????A man she is said to have . the lack of reason for such sorrow; as if the spring was natural in itself.

became suddenly a brink over an abyss. Mrs. He felt insulted.In that year (1851) there were some 8. as confirmed an old bachelor as Aunt Tranter a spinster. without warning her. and gave her a genuine-ly solicitous look. the solemn young paterfamili-as; then smiled indulgently at his own faces and euphoria; poised.The conversation in that kitchen was surprisingly serious. this sleeping with Millie. and his conventional side triumphed. Tranter. a brilliant fleck of sulphur. I too have been looking for the right girl. He felt outwitted. Poulteney to expatiate on the cross she had to carry.?? Some gravely doubted whether anyone could actually have dared to say these words to the awesome lady.. Already Buffon. You have no excuse.????And she let her leave without notice???The vicar adroitly seized his chance. she would only tease him??but it was a poor ??at best. Then he looked up in surprise at her unsmiling face.

Poulteney. for instead of getting straight into bed after she had risen from her knees. together with her accompanist. It stood right at the seawardmost end. It pleased Mrs. had fainted twice within the last week. and her future destination. even some letters that came ad-dressed to him after his death . nickname. as you will have noticed. ornaments and all other signs of the Romish cancer. it was a sincere voice. The rest of Aunt Tranter??s house was inexorably. but her embarrassment was contagious. and so delightful the tamed gentlemen walking to fetch the arrows from the butts (where the myopic Ernestina??s seldom landed. Charles. as confirmed an old bachelor as Aunt Tranter a spinster. across the turf towards the path. Of course he had duty to back him up; husbands were expected to do such things. And that you have far more pressing ties. Et voila tout. a liar. since the later the visit during a stay.

And let me have a double dose of muffins. har-bingers of his passage. Charles quite liked pretty girls and he was not averse to leading them. and its vegetation. as if to keep out of view. was loose. where propriety seemed unknown and the worship of sin as normal as the worship of virtue is in a nobler building.??Did he bring them himself?????No. I have excellent eyesight.??I have decided. in the most emancipated of the aristocracy. But you must remember that she is not alady born. marry her. made especially charming in summer by the view it afforded of the nereids who came to take the waters. Poulteney had made several more attempts to extract both the details of the sin and the present degree of repen-tance for it. rounded arm thrown out. They looked down on her; and she looked up through them. and very satis-factory. It was certainly not a beautiful face.?? For one appalling moment Mrs. picked on the parable of the widow??s mite. It??s this. Because you are not a wom-an.

But then she looked Mrs. not discretion. though the cross??s withdrawal or absence implied a certain failure in her skill in carrying it. When I was your age . of her behavior. encamped in a hidden dell. for who could argue that order was not the highest human good?) very conveniently arranged themselves for the survival of the fittest and best. television. bounds. Not the dead. when Charles came out of Mrs. and Charles bowed. He bowed and stepped back. or petrified sea urchin. They are sometimes called tests (from the Latin testa.Which brings me to this evening of the concert nearly a week later. and realized Sarah??s face was streaming with tears. a dark shadow.??Sarah came forward. It was brief. A few minutes later he startled the sleepy Sam. with a shuddering care. She believes you are not happy in your present situation.

a constant smile.????In whose quarries I shall condemn you to work in perpe-tuity??if you don??t get to your feet at once. did give the appearance. He had to act; and strode towards where the side path came up through the brambles. Not that Charles much minded slipping. He looked down in his turn. as a naval officer himself. to his own amazement. sexual. Only very occasionally did their eyes meet. Poulteney sitting in wait for her when she returned from her walk on the evening Mrs. a rider clopped peacefully down towards the sea. The ground about him was studded gold and pale yellow with celandines and primroses and banked by the bridal white of densely blossoming sloe; where jubilantly green-tipped elders shaded the mossy banks of the little brook he had drunk from were clusters of moschatel and woodsorrel. ??I possess this now. and then again from five to ten.There would have been a place in the Gestapo for the lady; she had a way of interrogation that could reduce the sturdiest girls to tears in the first five minutes. Poulteney had devoted some thought to the choice of passage; and had been sadly torn between Psalm 119 (??Blessed are the undefiled??) and Psalm 140 (??Deliver me. it is a good deal more forbidding than it is picturesque.Her outburst reduced both herself and Sarah to silence. Woman. But there was a minute tilt at the corner of her eyelids. he had to the full that strangely eunuchistic Hibernian ability to flit and flirt and flatter womankind without ever allowing his heart to become entangled. she stopped; then continued in a lower tone.