n the world as the best kind of English life. By the 'best kind,'
she means life among the aristocracy, in country houses, and in London
in the season. She made up her mind before I was eighteen that she
wanted me some day to marry a man who could give me just that life. I
used to laugh then, when she mapped out my future. It seemed only
funny, not vulgar and horrid to talk about marrying some vague,
imaginary man for his title and money; but when Mother took a house in
London--a better house than we could afford--and went into debt to buy
me heaps of lovely clothes, and fussed and schemed to get me presented
and dragged into the 'right set,' I began to be ashamed.

"Before we had been in London very long I met a man who was different
from any one I had ever seen before. From the first night, when we were
introduced at a dance, I could think about no one else. I wish I could
make you understand what he was like, for then you would see how a
woman who cared about him could never stop caring, even when he was
dead; for no other man could at all take his place. He wasn't handsome,
not even what people would call 'good looking,' I suppose, and he
didn't talk very much. But somehow, when he came into a room with lots
of other men in it, all the rest simply ceased to count. He was very
tall, and a great athlete. Maybe that was one thing that pleased a
woman, for we do like strength--we can't help it. But there was so much
more about him, magnetic and sincere and splendid, which would somehow
have made one feel that he was near, if one were _blind!_ He could do
all the things other men do better than any of the others, yet he had
thoughts such as none of the others had. One knew that a woman could
have no moods or imaginings beyond his power to understand, if he cared
enough, because he was _fine_--'fine' in the French meaning of the
word--as well as strong. I shall never forget the first time he looked
at me. We had just been introduced. There was something wonderful about
his eyes--I could hardly tell you what it was. But one suddenly felt
caught and drawn into them, as into a vortex in deep, still water,
clear and pure, though dark.

"I saw that he rather liked me, and even that meant a good deal from
him, because he was a man's man, and didn't care much about laughing
and talking with lots of girls. Perhaps he was shy of them. Mother saw,
too, that he was interested; and that was what began all the trouble,
because he was