r. Their marriage would be a success in the deepest, sincerest
meaning of that word.

He leant luxuriously among the cushions of his chair, lit a fragrant
cigarette, and ran his mind backward over many things. Well! Perhaps so!
But yet if he had refrained from proposing to her until now--now when
fate smiles upon her--it was simply because he dreaded dragging her into
a marriage where she could not have had all those little best things of
life that so peerless a creature had every right to demand.

Yes! it was for her sake alone he had hesitated. He feels sure of that
now. He has thoroughly persuaded himself the purity of the motives that
kept him tongue tied when honor called aloud to him for speech. He feels
himself so exalted that he metaphorically pats himself upon the back and
tells himself he is a righteous being--a very Brutus where honor is
concerned; any other man might have hurried that exquisite creature into
a squalid marriage for the mere sake of gratifying an overpowering
affection, but he had been above all that! He had considered her! The
man's duty is ever to protect the woman! He had protected her--even from
herself; for that she would have been only too willing to link her sweet
fate with his at any price-was patent to all the world. Few people have
felt as virtuous as Mr. Beauclerk as he comes to the end of this thread
of his imaginings.

Well! he will make it up to her! He smiles benignly through the smoke
that rises round his nose. She shall never have reason to remember that
he had not fallen on his knees to her--as a less considerate man might
have done--when he was without the means to make her life as bright as
it should be.

The most eager of lovers must live, and eating is the first move toward
that conclusion. Yet if he had given way to selfish desires they would
scarcely, he and she, have had sufficient bread (of any delectable kind)
to fill their mouths. But now all would be different. She, clever girl!
had supplied the blank; she had squared the difficulty. Having provided
the wherewithal to keep body and soul together in a nice, respectable,
fashionable, modern sort of way, her constancy shall certainly be
rewarded. He will go straight down to the Court, and declare to her the
sentiments that have been warming his breast (silently!) all these past
months. What a dear girl she is, and so fond of him! That in itself is
an extra charm in her very delightful character. And those fortunate