His very sophisticated, carefully educated tastes
in such matters inclined him towards the plump, the languishing,
and the quite helplessly feminine. Miss Bishop's charms were
undeniable. But they were such that it would take a delicate-minded
man to appreciate them; and my Lord Julian, whilst of a mind that
was very far from gross, did not possess the necessary degree of
delicacy. I must not by this be understood to imply anything against
him.
It remained, however, that Miss Bishop was a young woman and a lady;
and in the latitude into which Lord Julian had strayed this was a
phenomenon sufficiently rare to command attention. On his side,
with his title and position, his personal grace and the charm of a
practised courtier, he bore about him the atmosphere of the great
world in which normally he had his being - a world that was little
more than a name to her, who had spent most of her life in the
Antilles. It is not therefore wonderful that they should have been
attracted to each other before the Royal Mary was warped out of St.
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