emembered her grandfather used to
say that luck was a powerful ingredient in the successful career of
every man, but that the man was on the spot to take the luck, knew when
to take it, and how to use it. "The lucky man is the man that sits up
watching for the windfall while other men are sleeping"--that was the
way he had put it. So Rudyard Byng, if lucky, had also been of those
who had grown haggard with watching, working and waiting; but not a
hair of his head had whitened, and if he looked older than he was,
still he was young enough to marry the youngest debutante in England
and the prettiest and best-born. He certainly had inherent breeding.
His family had a long pedigree, and every man could not be as
distinguished-looking as Ian Stafford--as Ian Stafford, who, however,
had not three millions of pounds; who had not yet made his name and
might never do so.

She flushed with anger at herself that she should be so disloyal to
Ian, for whom she had pictured a brilliant future--ambassador at Paris
or Berlin, or, if he chose, Foreign Minister in Whitehall--Ian,
gracious, diligent, wonderfully trained, waiting, watching for his luck
and ready to take it; and to carry success, when it came, like a prince
of princelier days. Ian gratified every sense in her, met every demand
of an exacting nature, satisfied her unusually critical instinct, and
was, in effect, her affianced husband. Yet it was so hard to wait for
luck, for place, for power, for the environment where she could do
great things, could fill that radiant place which her cynical and
melodramatic but powerful and sympathetic grandfather had prefigured
for her. She had been the apple of that old man's eye, and he had
filled her brain--purposely--with ambitious ideas. He had done it when
she was very young, because he had not long to stay; and he had
overcoloured the pictures in order that the impression should be vivid
and indelible when he was gone. He had meant to bless, for, to his
mind, to shine, to do big things, to achieve notoriety, to attain
power, "to make the band play when you come," was the true philosophy
of life. And as this philosophy, successful in his case, was
accompanied by habits of life which would bear the closest inspection
by the dean and chapter, it was a difficult one to meet by argument or
admonition. He had taught his grandchild as successfully as he had
built the structure of his success. He had made material things the
basis of life'