, fitted indeed well enough for
the usual dull life of the world at large,--as many men both in
heathen and in Christian ages have taught themselves to think of
religion,--but which was not adapted to his advanced intelligence.
If he loved any woman he loved his cousin Alice. If he thoroughly
respected any woman he respected her. But that idea of tying himself
down to a household was in itself distasteful to him. "It is a thing
terrible to think of," he once said to a congenial friend in these
days of his life, "that a man should give permission to a priest to
tie him to another human being like a Siamese twin, so that all power
of separate and solitary action should be taken from him for ever!
The beasts of the field do not treat each other so badly. They
neither drink themselves drunk, nor eat themselves stupid;--nor do
they bind themselves together in a union which both would have to
hate." In this way George Vavasor, trying to imitate the wisdom of
the brutes, had taught himself some theories of a peculiar nature.
But, nevertheless, as he thought of Alice Vavasor on this occasion,
he began to feel that if a Siamese twin were necessary for him, she
of all others was the woman to whom he would wish to be so bound.

And if he did it at all, he must do it now. Under the joint
instigation of himself and his sister,--as he thought, and perhaps
not altogether without reason,--she had broken her engagement with Mr
Grey. That she would renew it again if left to herself, he believed
probable. And then, despite that advanced intelligence which had
taught him to regard all forms and ceremonies with the eye of a
philosopher, he had still enough of human frailty about him to feel
keenly alive to the pleasure of taking from John Grey the prize which
John Grey had so nearly taken from him. If Alice could have been
taught to think as he did as to the absurdity of those indissoluble
ties, that would have been better. But nothing would have been more
impossible than the teaching of such a lesson to his cousin Alice.
George Vavasor was a man of courage, and dared do most things;--but
he would not have dared to commence the teaching of such a lesson to
her.

And now, at this moment, what was his outlook into life generally? He
had very high ambition, and a fair hope of gratifying it if he could
only provide that things should go well with him for a year or so. He
was still a poor man, having been once nearly a rich man; but still
so