promising a profit from the deed of abstinence.

Mr. Lyttleton had ten thousand a year of his own, income from a
principal fortunately beyond his power to hypothecate; he spent twenty
thousand with an easy conscience; he earnestly desired to be able to
spend fifty without fear of consequences. Talents such as his merited
maintenance--failing independent means, such maintenance as comes from
marrying money and a wife above suspicion of parsimony. If only he had
been able, or even had cared to behave himself, Mr. Lyttleton's
fortunes might long since have been established on some such
satisfactory basis. But he was sorely handicapped by the weakness of a
sentimental nature; women would persist in falling in love with
him--always, unhappily, women of moderate means. He couldn't help
being sorry for them and seeking to assuage their sufferings; he
couldn't forever be running away from some infatuate female; and so he
was forever being found out and forgiven--by women. Most men, meanly
envious, disliked him; all men held him in pardonable distrust.
Devilish hard luck.

Take this Manwaring girl--pretty, intelligent, artless little woman,
perhaps a bit mature, but fascinating all the same, affectingly naive
about her trouble, which was simply spontaneous combustion, one more
of those first-sight affairs. He had noticed the symptoms immediately,
that night of her introduction to Gosnold House. He hadn't paid much
attention to her during luncheon, and only sought her out--when
they got up, on the spur of the moment, that informal after-dinner
dance by moonlight on the veranda--partly because he happened to
notice her sitting to one side, so obviously longing for him to ask
her, partly because it was his business to dance, and partly
because--well, because it was less dangerous, everything considered,
than dancing with Mrs. Standish.

And then the eloquent treachery of Sally's eyes and that little
gesture of surrender with which she yielded herself to his guidance.
It was really too bad, he thought, especially since she had made
occasion to tell him frankly she hadn't a dollar to bless herself
with. Still, he must give himself credit for behaving admirably; he
hadn't encouraged the girl. Not much, at all events. Of course, it
wasn't in human nature to ignore her entirely after that; moreover, to
slight her would have been conspicuous, not to say uncivil. But one
must draw the line somewhere.

To-night, for example, he had d