Being accustomed to look this world in the
face unblinkingly, she did not hesitate to add that he possessed great
wealth and the prospect of a high career. He was all, and indeed rather
more, than she, widowed Lady Attlebridge's slenderly dowered daughter,
had any reason to expect. She wanted to expect no more, if possible
really to regard this opportunity as greater luck than she had a right
to anticipate. The dissatisfaction which she sought to explain by
talking of a solution of sympathy was very obstinate, but justice set
the responsibility down to her account, not to his; analysing her
temperament, without excusing it, she found a spirit of adventure and
experiment--or should she say of restlessness and levity?--which
Marchmont did not minister to nor yet assuage. The only pleasure that
lay in this discovery came from the fact that it was so opposed to the
general idea about her. For it was her lot to be exalted into a type of
the splendid calm patrician maiden. In that sort of vein her friends
spoke of her when they were not very intimate, in that sort of language
she saw herself described in gushing paragraphs that chronicled the
doings of her class.
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