kindly took me on her left, with a view to better acquaintance, and

I was heartily glad of a possible chance to hear something of Dr. La
Touche's earlier life. In our previous interviews, Salemina's

presence had always precluded the possibility of leading the
conversation in the wished-for direction.

When I first saw Gerald La Touche I felt that he required
explanation. Usually speaking, a human being ought to be able, in

an evening's conversation, to explain himself, without any
adventitious aid. If he is a man, alive, vigorous, well poised,

conscious of his own individuality, he shows you, without any
effort, as much of his past as you need to form your impression, and

as much of his future as you have intuition to read. As opposed to
the vigorouspersonality, there is the colourless, flavourless,

insubstantial sort, forgotten as soon as learned, and for ever
confused with that of the previous or the next comer. When I was a

beginner in portrait-painting, I remember that, after I had
succeeded in making my background stay back where it belonged, my

figure sometimes had a way of clinging to it in a kind of smudgy
weakness, as if it were afraid to come out like a man and stand the

inspection of my eye. How often have I squandered paint upon the
ungrateful object without adding a cubit to its stature! It refused

to look like flesh and blood, but resembled rather some half-made
creature flung on the passivecanvas in a liquid state, with its

edges running over into the background. There are a good many of
these people in literature, too,--heroes who, like home-made paper

dolls, do not stand up well; or if they manage to perform that feat,
one unexpectedly discovers, when they are placed in a strong light,

that they have no vital organs whatever, and can be seen through
without the slightest difficulty. Dr. La Touche does not belong to

either of these two classes: he is not warm, magnetic, powerful,
impressive: neither is he by any means destitute of vital organs;

but his personality is blurred in some way. He seems a bit remote,
absentminded, and a trifle, just a trifle, over-resigned.

Privately, I think a man can afford to be resigned only to one
thing, and that is the will of God; against all other odds I prefer

to see him fight till the last armed foe expires. Dr. La Touche is
devotedly attached to his children, but quite helpless in their

hands; so that he never looks at them with pleasure or comfort or
pride, but always with an anxiety as to what they may do next. I

understand him better now that I know the circumstances of which he
has been the product. (Of course one is always a product of

circumstances, unless one can manage to be superior to them.) His
wife, the daughter of an American consul in Ireland, was a charming

but somewhat feather-brained person, rather given to whims and
caprices; very pretty, very young, very much spoiled, very

attractive, very undisciplined. All went well enough with them
until her father was recalled to America, because of some change in

political administration. The young Mrs. La Touche seemed to have
no resources apart from her family, and even her baby 'Jackeen'

failed to absorb her as might have been expected.
"We thought her a most trying woman at this time," said Lady

Killbally. "She seemed to have no thought of her husband's
interests, and none of the responsibilities that she had assumed in

marrying him; her only idea of life appeared to be amusement and
variety and gaiety. Gerald was a student, and always very grave and

serious; the kind of man who invariably marries a butterfly, if he
can find one to make him miserable. He was exceedingly patient; but

after the birth of little Broona, Adeline became so homesick and
depressed and discontented that, although the journey was almost an

impossibility at the time, Gerald took her back to her people, and
left her with them, while he returned to his duties at Trinity

College. Their life, I suppose, had been very unhappy for a year or
two before this, and when he came home to Dublin without his

children, he looked a sad and broken man. He was absolutely
faithful to his ideals, I am glad to say, and never wavered in his

allegiance to his wife, however disappointed he may have been in
her; going over regularly to spend his long vacations in America,

although she never seemed to wish to see him. At last she fell into
a state of hopeless melancholia; and it was rather a relief to us

all to feel that we had judged her too severely, and that her
unreasonableness and her extraordinary caprices had been born of

mental disorder more than of moral obliquity. Gerald gave up
everything to nurse her and rouse her from her apathy; but she faded

away without ever once coming back to a more normal self, and that
was the end of it all. Gerald's father had died meanwhile, and he

had fallen heir to the property and the estates. They were very
much encumbered, but he is gradually getting affairs into a less

chaotic state; and while his fortune would seem a small one to you
extravagant Americans, he is what we Irish paupers would call well

to do."
Lady Killbally was suspiciously willing to give me all this

information,--so much so that I ventured to ask about the children.
"They are captivating, neglected little things," she said. "Madame

La Touche, an aged aunt, has the ostensible charge of them, and she
is a most easy-going person. The servants are of the 'old family'

sort, the reckless, improvident, untidy, devoted, quarrelsome
creatures that always stand by the ruined Irish gentry in all their

misfortunes, and generally make their life a burden to them at the
same time. Gerald is a saint, and therefore never complains."

"It never seems to me that saints are altogether adapted to
positions like these," I sighed; "sinners would do ever so much

better. I should like to see Dr. La Touche take off his halo, lay
it carefully on the bureau, and wield a battle-axe. The world will

never acknowledge his merit; it will even forget him presently, and
his life will have been given up to the evolution of the passive

virtues. Do you suppose he will recognise the tender passion if it
ever does bud in his breast, or will he think it a weed, instead of

a flower, and let it wither for want of attention?"
"I think his friends will have to enhance his self-respect, or he

will for ever be too modest to declare himself," said Lady
Killbally. "Perhaps you can help us: he is probably going to

America this winter to lecture at some of your universities, and he
may stay there for a year or two, so he says. At any rate, if the

right woman ever appears on the scene, I hope she will have the
instinct to admire and love and reverence him as we do," and here

she smiled directly into my eyes, and slipping her pretty hand under
the tablecloth squeezed mine in a manner that spoke volumes.

It is not easy to explain one's desire to marry off all the
unmarried persons in one's vicinity. When I look steadfastly at any

group of people, large or small, they usually segregate themselves
into twos under my prophetic eye. It they are nice and attractive,

I am pleased to see them mated; if they are horrid and disagreeable,
I like to think of them as improving under the discipline of

matrimony. It is joy to see beauty meet a kindling eye, but I am
more delighted still to watch a man fall under the glamour of a

plain, dull girl, and it is ecstasy for me to see a perfectly
unattractive, stupid woman snapped up at last, when I have given up

hopes of settling her in life. Sometimes there are men so
uninspiring that I cannot converse with them a single moment without

yawning; but though failures in all other relations, one can
conceive of their being tolerably useful as husbands and fathers;

not for one's self, you understand, but for one's neighbours.
Dr. La Touche's life now, to any understanding eye, is as incomplete

as the unfinished window in Aladdin's tower. He is too wrinkled,
too studious, too quiet, too patient for his years. His children

need a mother, his old family servants need discipline, his baronial
halls need sweeping and cleaning (I haven't seen them, but I know

they do!), and his aged aunt needs advice and guidance. On the
other hand, there are those (I speak guardedly) who have walked in

shady, sequestered paths all their lives, looking at hundreds of
happy lovers on the sunny highroad, but never joining them; those

who adore erudition, who love children, who have a genius for
unselfish devotion, who are sweet and refined and clever, and who

look perfectly lovely when they put on grey satin and leave off
eyeglasses. They say they are over forty, and although this

probably is exaggeration, they may be thirty-nine and three-
quarters; and if so, the time is limited in which to find for them a