hat
after all Gwendolen was fond of her betrothed. She herself thought him
a man whose attentions were likely to tell on a girl's feeling. Suitors
must often be judged as words are, by the standing and the figure they
make in polite society: it is difficult to know much else of them. And
all the mother's anxiety turned not on Grandcourt's character, but on
Gwendolen's mood in accepting him.

The mood was necessarily passing through a new phase this morning. Even
in the hour of making her toilet, she had drawn on all the knowledge
she had for grounds to justify her marriage. And what she most dwelt on
was the determination, that when she was Grandcourt's wife, she would
urge him to the most liberal conduct toward Mrs. Glasher's children.

"Of what use would it be to her that I should not marry him? He could
have married her if he liked; but he did _not_ like. Perhaps she is to
blame for that. There must be a great deal about her that I know
nothing of. And he must have been good to her in many ways, else she
would not have wanted to marry him."

But that last argument at once began to appear doubtful. Mrs. Glasher
naturally wished to exclude other children who would stand between
Grandcourt and her own: and Gwendolen's comprehension of this feeling
prompted another way of reconciling claims.

"Perhaps we shall have no children. I hope we shall not. And he might
leave the estate to the pretty little boy. My uncle said that Mr.
Grandcourt could do as he liked with the estates. Only when Sir Hugo
Mallinger dies there will be enough for two."

This made Mrs. Glasher appear quite unreasonable in demanding that her
boy should be sole heir; and the double property was a security that
Grandcourt's marriage would do her no wrong, when the wife was
Gwendolen Harleth with all her proud resolution not to be fairly
accused. This maiden had been accustomed to think herself blameless;
other persons only were faulty.

It was striking, that in the hold which this argument of her doing no
wrong to Mrs. Glasher had taken on her mind, her repugnance to the idea
of Grandcourt's past had sunk into a subordinate feeling. The terror
she had felt in the night-watches at overstepping the border of
wickedness by doing what she had at first felt to be wrong, had dulled
any emotions about his conduct. She was thinking of him, whatever he
might be, as a man over whom she was going to have indefinite power;
and her loving him having never been