thout him."

Only, in the house, owing to some unnatural perversity of circumstances,
he did not see much of Evelyn, never alone for more than a moment. It
is wonderful what efficient, though invisible, defenses most women, when
they will, can throw about themselves.

That the affair was "arranged" Lord Montague had no doubt. It was not
conceivable that the daughter of an American stock-broker would refuse
the offer of a position so transcendent and so evidently coveted in a
democratic society. Not that the single-minded young man reasoned about
it this way. He was born with a most comfortable belief in himself
and the knowledge that when he decided to become a domestic man he had
simply, as the phrase is, to throw his handkerchief.

At home, where such qualities as distinguished him from the common were
appreciated without the need of personal exertion, this might be true;
but in America it did seem to be somehow different. American women, at
least some of them, did need to be personally wooed; and many of them
had a sort of independence in the bestowal of their affections or, what
they understood to be the same thing, themselves that must be taken
into account. And it gradually dawned upon the mind of this inheritor
of privilege that in this case the approval of the family, even the
pressure of the mother, was not sufficient; he must have also Evelyn's
consent. If she were a mature woman who knew and appreciated the world,
she would perceive the advantages offered to her without argument. But
a girl, just released from the care of her governess, unaccustomed to
society, might have notions, or, in the vernacular of the scion, might
be skittish.

And then, again, to do the wooer entire justice, the dark little girl,
so much mistress of herself, so evidently spirited, with such an air
of distinction, began to separate herself in his mind as a good goer
against the field, and he had a real desire to win her affection. The
more indifferent she was to him, the keener was his desire to possess
her. His unsuccessful wooing had passed through several stages, first
astonishment, then pique, and finally something very like passion, or
a fair semblance of devotion, backed, of course, since all natures are
more or less mixed, by the fact that this attractive figure of the woman
was thrown into high relief by the colossal fortune behind her.

And Evelyn herself? Neither her mother nor her suitor appreciated
the uncommon circum