Is there really no truth in the report ?" "None whatever," he replied.

"I have no more idea of being married than I have of sailing this moment for the Cape." "It is strange," said the duchess, musingly; "I had the information from such good authority, too." "There can be no better authority on the subject," said Lord Arleigh, laughingly, "than myself." "You; I admit that.

Well, as the ice is broken, Lord Arleigh, and we are old friends, I may ask, why do you not marry ?" "Simply because of marriage, and of love that ends in marriage, I have not thought," he answered lightly.
"It is time for you to begin," observed the duchess; "my own impression is that a man does no good in the world until he is married." And then she added: "I suppose you have an ideal of womanhood ?" Lord Arleigh's face flushed.
"Yes," he acknowledged, "I have an ideal of my own, derived from poetry I have read, from pictures I have seen--an ideal of perfect grace, loveliness, and purity.

When I meet that ideal, I shall meet my fate." "Then you have never yet seen the woman you would like to to marry ?" pursued the duchess.
"No," he answered, quite seriously; "strange to say, although I have seen some of the fairest and noblest types of womanhood, I have not yet met with my ideal." They were disturbed by a sudden movement--the flowers that Philippa held in her hand had fallen to the ground..