'What a splendid opportunity it would be if--if
the business could be arranged on the square. But as it is--well--as it
is there is the chance of an adventure; and when did a Montesma ever
avoid an adventure, although there were dagger or poison lurking in the
background? And here there is neither poison nor steel, only a lovely
woman, and an infatuated stockbroker, about whom I know enough to
disgrace and ruin an archbishop. Poor Smithson! How very unlucky that I
should happen to come across your pathway in the heyday of your latest
love affair. We have had our little adventures in that line already, and
we have measured swords together, metaphorically, before to-night. When
it comes to a question of actual swords my Smithson declines. _Pas si
bete._'
CHAPTER XXXVII.
LORD HARTFIELD REFUSES A FORTUNE.
A honeymoon among lakes and mountains, amidst the gorgeous confusion of
Borrowdale, in a little world of wild, strange loveliness, shut in and
isolated from the prosaic outer world by the vast and towering masses of
Skiddaw and Blencathara--a world of one's own, as it were, a world
steeped in romance and poetry, dear to the souls of poets.
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