, and he would always, in society, subject
Louise to a consciousness of his difference if he did nothing more. But
when you had said this, you seemed to have said all there was to say
against him. The more the Hilarys learned about the young fellow the
more reason they had to respect him. His life, on its level, was
blameless. Every one who knew him spoke well of him, and those who knew
him best spoke enthusiastically; he had believers in his talent and in
his character. In a society so barometrical as ours, even in a city
where it was the least barometrical, the obstacles to the acceptance of
Maxwell were mainly subjective. They were formed not so much of what
people would say as of what Mrs. Hilary felt they had a right to say,
and, in view of the necessities of the case, she found herself realizing
that if they did not say anything to her it would be much as if they had
not said anything at all. She dealt with the fact before her frankly,
and in the duties which it laid upon her she began to like Maxwell
before Hilary did. Not that Hilary disliked him, but there was something
in the young fellow taking his daughter away from him, in that cool
matter-of-fact way, as if it were quite in the course of nature that he
should, instead of being abashed and overwhelmed by his good fortune,
which left Hilary with a misgiving lest he might realize it less and
less as time went on.

Hilary had no definite ambition for her in marriage, but his vague
dreams for her were not of a young man who meant to leave off being a
newspaper writer to become a writer of plays. He instinctively wished
her to be of his own order of things; and it had pleased him when he
heard from his wife's report that Louise had seen the folly of her fancy
for the young journalist whom a series of accidents had involved with
their lives, and had decided to give him up. When the girl decided
again, more tacitly, that she could not give him up, Hilary submitted,
as he would have submitted to anything she wished. To his simple
idolatry of her she was too good for anything on earth, and if he were
to lose her, he found that after all he had no great choice in the
matter. As soon as her marriage appeared inevitable, he agreed with his
wife that their daughter must never have any unhappiness of their
making; and they let her reverse without a word the purpose of going to
spend the winter abroad which they had formed at her wish when she
renounced Maxwell.

All th