achelor he was
all right. He could keep nice chambers; he could ride in the Row; he
could have a valet; he could wear good clothes--and he was a man whom
Nature had meant, and tailor recognised, for one to show off good
clothes. But if he should ever marry it was clear to him that he must
have a house like other people, and that he must give dinner parties. He
did not reason this out in his mind--he never reasoned anything out in
his mind--it was all clear and self-evident to him. Therefore, after a
while, the question began to arise--why should he not marry Helena
Langley? He knew perfectly well that if she wished to be married to him
Sir Rupert would not offer the slightest objection. Any man whom his
daughter really loved Sir Rupert would certainly accept as a son-in-law.
Rivers even fancied, not, perhaps, altogether without reason, that Sir
Rupert personally would regard it as a convenient arrangement if his
daughter were to fall in love with his secretary and get married to him.
But above and beyond all this, Rivers, as a practical philosopher, had
broken down, and he found himself in love with Helena Langley. For
herself, Helena never suspected it. She had grown to be very fond of
Soame Rivers. He seemed to fill for her exactly the part that a
good-tempered brother might have done. Indeed, not any brother, however
good-natured, would have been as attentive to a sister as Rivers was to
her. He had a quiet, unobtrusive way of putting his personal attentions
as part of his official duty which absolutely relieved Helena's mind of
any idea of lover-like consideration. At many a dinner party or evening
party her father had to leave her prematurely, and go down to the House
of Commons. It became to her a matter of course that in such a case
Rivers was always sure to be there to put her into her carriage and see
that she got safely home. There was nothing in it. He was her father's
secretary--a gentleman, to be sure; a man of social position, as good as
the best; but still, her father's secretary looking after her because of
his devotion to her father. She began to like him every day more and
more for his devotion to her father. She did not at first like his
cynical ways--his trick of making out that every great deed was really
but a small one, that every seemingly generous and self-sacrificing
action was actually inspired by the very principle of selfishness; that
love of the poor, sympathy with the oppressed, were only wi