he vast majority of young ladies of the present
day--she had no vague and indistinct dreams as to what marriage might
bring her. She knew exactly what she wanted from it. She wanted wealth
and position, because she knew what they were and what life became
without them; and because she knew that she was utterly unfitted to be
the wife of any one but a rich man.

And therefore it was that Vera looked from the square red house behind
her over the wide gardens and broad lawns, and down the noble avenues
that spread away into the distance, and said to herself, "This is what
will suit me, to be mistress of a place like this; I should love it
dearly; I should find real happiness and pleasure in the duties that such
a position would bring me. If Sir John Kynaston comes here, it is he whom
I will marry, and none other."

As to what her feelings might be towards the man whom she thus proposed
to marry it cannot be said that Vera took them into consideration at all.
She was not, indeed, aware whether or no she possessed any feelings; they
had never incommoded her hitherto. Probably they had no existence. Such
vague fancy as had been ever roused within her had been connected with a
photograph seen once in a writing-table drawer. The photograph of Sir
John Kynaston! The reflection did not influence her in the least, only
she said to herself also, "If he is like his photograph, I should be sure
to get on with him."

She was an odd mixture, this Vera. Ambitious, worldly-wise, mercenary
even, if you will; conscious of her own beauty, and determined to exact
its full value; and yet she was tender and affectionate, full of poetry
and refinement, honest and true as her own fanciful name.

The secret of these strange contradictions is simply this. Vera has never
loved. No one spark of divine fire has ever touched her soul or warmed
the latent energies of her being. She has lived in the thick of the
world, but love has passed her scatheless. Her mind, her intellect, her
brain, are all alive, and sharpened acutely; her heart slumbers still.
Happier for her, perhaps, had it never awakened.

She leant upon the stone parapet, supporting her chin upon her hand,
dreaming her dreams. Her hat lay by her side, her long dark dress fell in
straight heavy folds to her feet. The yellow leaves fluttered about her,
the peacocks strutted up and down, the gardeners in the distance were
sweeping up the dead leaves on the lawns, but Vera stirred not; one