, except where a pretty face and shapely
hand or ankle were concerned; of Nellie Fanshawe, then in the pride of
her ravishing beauty, who loved none but herself, whose clay-made gods
were jewels, and fine dresses and rich feasts, the envy of other women
and the courtship of all mankind.

That evening of the ball each clung to the hope that this memory of the
future was but a dream. They had been introduced to one another; had
heard each other's names for the first time with a start of recognition;
had avoided one another's eyes; had hastened to plunge into meaningless
talk; till that moment when young Camelford, stooping to pick up
Jessica's fan, had found that broken fragment of the Rhenish wine-glass.
Then it was that conviction refused to be shaken off, that knowledge of
the future had to be sadly accepted.

What they had not foreseen was that knowledge of the future in no way
affected their emotions of the present. Nathaniel Armitage grew day by
day more hopelessly in love with bewitching Alice Blatchley. The thought
of her marrying anyone else--the long-haired, priggish Camelford in
particular--sent the blood boiling through his veins; added to which
sweet Alice, with her arms about his neck, would confess to him that
life without him would be a misery hardly to be endured, that the
thought of him as the husband of another woman--of Nellie Fanshawe in
particular--was madness to her. It was right perhaps, knowing what
they did, that they should say good-bye to one another. She would bring
sorrow into his life. Better far that he should put her away from him,
that she should die of a broken heart, as she felt sure she would. How
could he, a fond lover, inflict this suffering upon her? He ought of
course to marry Nellie Fanshawe, but he could not bear the girl. Would
it not be the height of absurdity to marry a girl he strongly disliked
because twenty years hence she might be more suitable to him than the
woman he now loved and who loved him?

Nor could Nellie Fanshawe bring herself to discuss without laughter the
suggestion of marrying on a hundred-and-fifty a year a curate that
she positively hated. There would come a time when wealth would be
indifferent to her, when her exalted spirit would ask but for the
satisfaction of self-sacrifice. But that time had not arrived. The
emotions it would bring with it she could not in her present state even
imagine. Her whole present being craved for the things of this world,