 which
sometimes seemed startling as addressed to an uncle. But Mr. Wentworth could not
do these things. He could not even bring himself to attempt to measure her
position in the world. She was the wife of a foreign nobleman who desired to
repudiate her. This had a singular sound, but the old man felt himself destitute
of the materials for a judgment. It seemed to him that he ought to find them in
his own experience, as a man of the world and an almost public character; but
they were not there, and he was ashamed to confess to himself - much more to
reveal to Eugenia by interrogations possibly too innocent - the unfurnished
condition of this repository.
    It appeared to him that he could get much nearer, as he would have said, to
his nephew; though he was not sure that Felix was altogether safe. He was so
bright and handsome and talkative that it was impossible not to think well of
him; and yet it seemed as if there were something almost impudent, almost
vicious - or as if there ought to be - in a young man being at once so joyous
and so positive. It was to be observed that while Felix was not at all a serious
young man there was somehow more of him - he had more weight and volume and
resonance - than a number of young men who were distinctly serious. While Mr.
Wentworth meditated upon this anomaly his nephew was admiring him
unrestrictedly. He thought him a most delicate, generous, high-toned old
gentleman, with a very handsome head, of the ascetic type, which he promised
himself the profit of sketching. Felix was far from having made a secret of the
fact that he wielded the paint-brush, and it was not his own fault if it failed
to be generally understood that he was prepared to execute the most striking
likenesses on the most reasonable terms. »He is an artist - my cousin is an
artist,« said Gertrude; and she offered this information to every one who would
receive it. She offered it to herself, as it were, by way of admonition and
reminder; she repeated to herself at odd moments, in lonely places, that Felix
was invested with this sacred character. Gertrude had never seen an artist
before; she had only read about such people. They seemed to her a romantic and
mysterious class, whose life was made up of those agreeable accidents that never
happened to other persons. And it merely quickened her meditations on this point
that Felix should declare, as he repeatedly did, that he was really not an
artist. »I have never
