age human selfishness and faultiness, long ago. She loved him
passionately in spite of it--perhaps, if the truth were known,
because of it.

As for the marrying, or rather the courting, for money, that excited in
her no repulsion whatever. Julie, in her own way, was a great romantic;
but owing to the economic notions of marriage, especially the whole
conception of the _dot_, prevailing in the French or Belgian minds amid
whom she had passed her later girlhood, she never dreamed for a moment
of blaming Warkworth for placing money foremost in his plans of
matrimony. She resembled one of the famous _amoureuses_ of the
eighteenth century, who in writing to the man she loved but could not
marry, advises him to take a wife to mend his fortunes, and proposes to
him various tempting morsels--_une jeune personne_, sixteen, with
neither father nor mother, only a brother. "They will give her on her
marriage thirteen thousand francs a year, and the aunt will be quite
content to keep her and look after her for some time." And if that won't
do--"I know a man who would be only too happy to have you for a
son-in-law; but his daughter is only eleven; she is an only child,
however, and she will be _very_ rich. You know, _mon ami_, I desire your
happiness above all things; how to procure it--there lies the chief
interest of my life."

This notion of things, more or less disguised, was to Julie customary
and familiar; and it was no more incompatible in her with the notions
and standards of high sentiment, such as she might be supposed to have
derived from her parents, than it is in the Latin races generally.

No doubt it had been mingled in her, especially since her settlement in
Lady Henry's house, with the more English idea of "falling in love"--the
idea which puts personal choice first in marriage, and makes the matter
of dowry subordinate to that mysterious election and affinity which the
Englishman calls "love." Certainly, during the winter, Julie had hoped
to lead Warkworth to marry her. As a poor man, of course, he must have
money. But her secret feeling had been that her place in society, her
influence with important people, had a money value, and that he would
perceive this.

Well, she had been a mere trusting fool, and he had deceived her. There
was his crime--not in seeking money and trusting to money. He had told
her falsehoods and misled her. He was doing it still. His letter implied
that he loved her? Possibly. It implied