er to overcome circumstances, not
yet in her talent, in her artistic birthright. Redgrave would have made
her path smooth. 'I promise you a great reputation in two or three
years' time.' And without disgrace, without shadow of suspicion, it
would all be managed, he declared, so very easily. For what alternative
had she rebuffed him?

Redgrave's sagacity had guided him well up to a certain point, but it
had lost sight of one thing essential to the success of his scheme.
Perhaps because he was forty years of age, perhaps because he had so
often come and seen and conquered, perhaps because he made too low an
estimate of Bennet Frothingham's daughter,--he simply overlooked
sentimental considerations. It was a great and a fatal oversight. He
went far in his calculated appeal to Alma's vanity; had he but credited
her with softer passions, and given himself the trouble to play upon
them, he would not, at all events, have suffered so sudden a defeat.
Men of Redgrave's stamp grow careless, and just at the time of life
when, for various causes, the art which conceals art has become
indispensable. He did not flatter himself that Alma was ready to fall
in love with him; and here his calm maturity served him ill. To his own
defect of ardour he was blinded by habit. After all, the affair had
little consequence. It had only suggested itself after the meeting in
Munich, and perhaps--he said to himself--all things considered, the
event was just as well.

But Alma felt the double insult, to her worldly honour, to her
womanhood. The man had not even made pretence of loving her; and this,
whilst it embittered her disappointment, strengthened her to cast from
her mind the baser temptation. Marriage she would have accepted, though
doubtless with becoming hesitancy; the offer could not have been made
without one word of tenderness (for Cyrus Redgrave was another than
Felix Dymes), and she had not felt it impossible to wed this polished
capitalist. Out of the tumult of her feelings, as another day went by,
issued at length that one simple and avowable sense of disappointment.
She had grasped the prize, and heated her imagination in regarding it;
had overcome natural reluctances, objections personal and moral; was
ready to sit down and write to Mrs. Frothingham the splendid, startling
announcement. And here she idled in her bedroom, desolate, hopeless,
wishing she had courage to steal down at night to the waters of the
Bodensee, and end it al