e accused of not showing a clean face in the
light, he would have been moved and lifted to confess to a spot by
the touch at his heart. Dudley Sowerby's deficiencies, however, were
outweighed by the palpable advantages of his birth, his prospects, and
his good repute for conduct; add thereto his gentlemanly manners. Victor
sighed again over his poor Fredi; and in telling Mr. Sowerby that the
choice must be left to her, he had the regrets of a man aware of
his persuasive arts and how they would be used, to think that he was
actually making the choice.

Observe how fatefully he who has a scheme is the engine of it; he is no
longer the man of his tastes or of his principles; he is on a line of
rails for a terminus; and he may cast languishing eyes across
waysides to right and left, he has doomed himself to proceed, with a
self-devouring hunger for the half desired; probably manhood gone at
the embrace of it. This may be or not, but Nature has decreed to him the
forfeit of pleasure. She bids us count the passage of a sober day for
the service of the morrow; that is her system; and she would have
us adopt it, to keep in us the keen edge for cutting, which is the
guarantee of enjoyment: doing otherwise, we lose ourselves in one or
other of the furious matrix instincts; we are blunt to all else.

Young Dudley fully agreed that the choice must be with Miss Radnor;
he alluded to her virtues, her accomplishments. He was waxing to
fervidness. He said he must expect competitors; adding, on a start,
that he was to say, from his mother, she, in the case of an intention to
present Miss Radnor at Court....

Victor waved hand for a finish, looking as though, his head had come out
of hot water. He sacrificed Royalty to his necessities, under a kind of
sneer at its functions: 'Court! my girl? But the arduous duties are over
for the season. We are a democratic people retaining the seductions of
monarchy, as a friend says; and of course a girl may like to count
among the flowers of the kingdom for a day, in the list of Court
presentations; no harm. Only there's plenty of time... very young girls
have their heads turned--though I don't say, don't imagine, my girl
would. By and by perhaps.'

Dudley was ushered into Mr. Inchling's room and introduced to the
figure-head of the Firm of Inchling, Pennergate, and Radnor: a
respectable City merchant indeed, whom Dudley could read-off in a
glimpse of the downright contrast to his partner. He had