he would
have accepted him as groom. And if in his pain he were one day to utter
it, and she in her honesty were to confess she would not, must she not
then fall prone from her pedestal in his imagination? Could he, then, in
love for the woman herself, condescend as marquis to marry one who _might_
not have married him as any something else he could honestly have been
under the all-enlightening sun? Ah, but again, was that fair to her yet?
Might she not see in the marquis the truth and worth which the blinding
falsehoods of society prevented her from seeing in the groom? Might not a
lady--he tried to think of a lady in the abstract--might not a lady in
marrying a marquis--a lady to whom from her own position a marquis was
just a man on the level--marry in him the man he was, and not the marquis
he seemed? Most certainly, he answered: he must not be unfair. Not the
less, however, did he shrink from the thought of taking her prisoner under
the shield of his marquisate, beclouding her nobility, and depriving her
of the rare chance of shining forth as the sun in the splendor of womanly
truth. No: he would choose the greater risk of losing her for the chance
of winning her greater.

So far Malcolm got with his theories, but the moment he began to think in
the least practically he recoiled altogether from the presumption. Under
no circumstances could he ever have the courage to approach Lady
Clementina with a thought of himself in his mind. How could he have dared
even raise her imagined eidolon for his thoughts to deal withal? She had
never shown him personal favor. He could not tell whether she had listened
to what he had tried to lay before her. He did not know that she had gone
to hear his master: Florimel had never referred to their visit to Hope
chapel. His surprise would have equaled his delight at the news that she
had already become as a daughter to the schoolmaster.

And what had been Clementina's thoughts since learning that Florimel had
not run away with her groom? It were hard to say with completeness.
Accuracy, however, may not be equally unattainable. Her first feeling was
an utterly inarticulate, undefined pleasure that Malcolm was free to be
thought about. She was clear next that it would be matter for honest
rejoicing if the truest man she had ever met except his master was not
going to marry such an unreality as Florimel--one concerning whom, as
things had been going of late, it was impossible to say that s