trifling pleasure. He never dreamed that it was a great one.

Long afterwards the character of Lucian Spenser was summed up as follows
by a man of his own age who had a taste for collecting and classifying
characteristics; he even ventured to think such collections almost as
interesting as old china. "He was the most delightful and lovable fellow
I have ever known; and a great many persons thought so besides myself.
But he never was hampered with, he never took, a grain of
responsibility in his whole life. This not from selfishness, or any
particular plan for evading it; he simply never thought about _that_ at
all."

This was true. Even in the case of so serious a thing as his marriage,
the responsibility was all assumed by Rosalie.

How she came to have the idea that he loved her, she herself alone could
have told. Probably she was deceived by his manner, which was often
intangibly lover-like simply through the genius for kindness that
possessed him; or by the tones which his voice fell into now and then
when he was with any woman he liked, even in a small degree. All this
was general, for women in general; but poor concentrated Rosalie, who
seldom saw him with other women, thought that it was for one. However
her belief had been obtained, it was a sincere one; and she accounted
for his silence by saying to herself that he would not speak on account
of her fortune. Here again she completely misjudged him; southerner as
he was, Lucian's thoughts did not dwell upon money; southerner as he
was, too, twenty fortunes would not have kept him from the woman he
loved. But, once convinced in her own heart, Rosalie no longer fought
against her love for him--why should she? It was the one bright spot of
her life. It was possible, after all, then, for life to be happy!

She worshipped every glance of his eye, every word that he spoke; it was
pathetic to see the adoration which that repressed nature was lavishing
upon a nature so different from its own. But no one saw the adoration
save Lucian, she concealed it from all the world besides. For a long
time even he did not see it--he was so accustomed to being liked. When
suddenly he did become aware of it (long after the evil was done), he
left her and left New York. There had never been a word of explanation
between them.

Rosalie did not yield; she knew her own heart, she knew that she loved
him, she believed that he loved her; she trusted to time. And meanwhile
she kept up t