for her, and better for
me," he had said to himself: "let her outlive her foolish schoolgirl
fancies, and wait patiently till her beauty wins her a rich husband. As
for me, I must marry some prosperous tradesman's widow, if I ever marry
at all."

The influence of the world in which his life had been spent had
degraded Valentine Hawkehurst, and had done much to harden him; and yet
he was not altogether hard. He discovered his own weakness very soon
after the beginning of his acquaintance with Mr. Sheldon's
stepdaughter. He knew very well that if he had been no fitting lover
for Diana Paget, he was still less a fitting lover for Charlotte
Halliday. He knew that although it might suit Mr. Sheldon's purpose to
make use of the Captain and himself as handy instruments for the
accomplishment of somewhat dirty work, he would be the very last man to
accept one of those useful instruments as a husband for his
stepdaughter. He knew all this; and knew that, apart from all worldly
considerations, there was an impassable gulf between himself and
Charlotte. What could there be in common between the unprincipled
companion of Horatio Paget and this innocent girl, whose darkest sin
had been a neglected lesson or an ill-written exercise? If he could
have given her a home and a position, an untarnished name and
respectable associations, he would even yet have been unworthy of her
affection, unable to assure her happiness.

"I am a scoundrel and an adventurer," he said to himself, in his most
contemptuous spirit. "If some benevolent fairy were to give me the
brightest home that was ever created for man, and Charlotte for my
wife, I daresay I should grow tired of my happiness in a week or two,
and go out some night to look for a place where I could play billiards
and drink beer. Is there any woman upon this earth who could render my
existence supportable _without_ billiards and beer?"

Knowing himself much better than the Grecian philosopher seemed to
think it possible for human nature to know itself, Mr. Hawkehurst
decided that it was his bounden duty, both for his own sake and that of
the young lady in question, to keep clear of the house in which Miss
Halliday lived, and the avenue in which she was wont to walk. He told
himself this a dozen times a day, and yet he made his appearance at the
Lawn whenever he had the poorest shadow of an excuse for going there;
and it seemed as if the whole business of his life lay at the two ends
of Ch