be something
more than a well-to-do man; his wife, if she aimed that way, might look
for a social position such as the world envied.

"And on the whole," he added, "as society must have leaders, I prefer
that they should be people with brains as well as money. The ambition
is quite legitimate. Do your part in civilising the drawing-room, as
Arnold conceives he is doing his on a larger scale. A good and
intelligent woman is no superfluity in the world of wealth nowadays."

Irene tried to believe that this ambition appealed to her. Nay, at
times it certainly did so, for she liked the brilliant and the
commanding. On the other hand, it seemed imperfect as an ideal of life.
In its undercurrents her thought was always more or less turbid.

A letter from Arnold announced his coming. A day after, he arrived.

Many times as she had enacted in fancy the scene of their meeting,
Irene found in the reality something quite unlike her anticipation.
Arnold, it was true, behaved much as she expected; he was perfect in
well-bred homage; he said the right things in the right tone; his face
declared a sincere emotion, yet he restrained himself within due limits
of respect. The result in Irene's mind was disappointment and fear.

He gave her too little; he seemed to ask too much.

The first interview--in a private sitting-room at the hotel where they
were all staying--lasted about half an hour; it wrought a change in
Irene for which she had not at all prepared herself, though the doubts
and misgivings which had of late beset her pointed darkly to such a
revulsion of feeling. She had not understood; she could not understand,
until enlightened by the very experience. Alone once more, she sat down
all tremulous; pallid as if she had suffered a shock of fright. An
indescribable sense of immodesty troubled her nerves: she seemed to
have lost all self-respect: the thought of going forth again, of facing
her father and brother, was scarcely to be borne. This acute distress
presently gave way to a dull pain, a sinking at the heart. She felt
miserably alone. She longed for a friend of her own sex, not
necessarily to speak of what she was going through, but for the moral
support of a safe companionship. Never had she known such a feeling of
isolation, and of over-great responsibility.

A few tears relieved her. Irene was not prone to weeping; only a great
crisis of her fate would have brought her to this extremity.

It was over in a quarter