small wonder if the head of the daughter of the
House of Tippett was a trifle turned and certain of her perceptions were
blunted.

Although ofttimes large with complacency, she by no means lost sight of
her original purpose to wed a coronet, and if she endured four years of
widowhood it was merely because she knew that she could afford to wait
for transcendence. This she had finally run to earth in Lord Brathland,
imminent heir to a dukedom, and personally more agreeable to her than
any man in London. That he was notoriously inconstant but added zest to
the chase, and it was, perhaps, the illusion she at times achieved of a
certain resemblance to the ladies of his preference that finally
overcame his intense aversion from respectability. He had offered
himself to her on the day of his undoing.

This was the woman with whom Elton Gwynne was infatuated at the most
critical moment of his career. Of her profound aybsses he suspected
nothing. She reigned in his imagination as the unique woman in whom
intellect and passion, tenderness and all the social graces united in an
exquisite harmony. There had been a time when, dazzled by the brilliancy
of his ascending star, and Brathland being but a name to her, she had
considered marriage with a man who assuredly would be the next leader of
a Liberal House, and was no less certain of being prime-minister. She
was under no delusion that she could one day induce him to accept a
peerage, but she was reasonably sure that Zeal would not marry again,
and there were times when the heir looked so ill that she tightened her
bonds about the heir-presumptive, while assuring him that she was too
much in love with liberty to think of marriage. Even when Zeal came back
from Norway or Sorrento looking almost well, she never permitted Gwynne
to escape, to see so much as a corner of her ego that might disturb the
image of herself she had created in his mind; and when she met Brathland
and her senses swam with the subtle scent of strawberry leaves, she saw
no reason for losing the stimulating society and flattering attentions
of the brightest star in the political firmament. Therefore, when he was
ready to hand, in the crushing hour of her riven ambitions, and his own
of serenest effulgence, she promptly reflected that the distance between
a marquisate and a dukedom was quickly traversed by a powerful
statesman. Meanwhile, although Elton Gwynne would no doubt be a hideous
trial as a husband, his w