and I believed him.'

'I wish you would tell me of these things seriously, and without banter.'

'So I do. Heaven knows I am in no jesting humour. It is in no outburst of
high spirits or gaiety a girl confesses she is going to marry a man who has
neither wealth nor station to offer, and whose fine connections are just
fine enough to be ashamed of him.'

'Are you in love with him?'

'If you mean, do I imagine that this man's affection and this man's
companionship are more to me than all the comforts and luxuries of life
with another, I am not in love with him; but if you ask me, am I satisfied
to risk my future with so much as I know of his temper, his tastes, his
breeding, his habits, and his abilities, I incline to say Yes. Married
life, Kate, is a sort of dietary, and one should remember that what he has
to eat of every day ought not to be too appetising.'

'I abhor your theory.'

'Of course you do, child; and you fancy, naturally enough, that you would
like ortolans every day for dinner; but my poor cold Greek temperament has
none of the romantic warmth of your Celtic nature. I am very moderate in my
hopes, very humble in all my ambitions.'

'It is not thus I read you.'

'Very probably. At all events, I have consented to be Mr. Walpole's wife,
and we are to be Minister Plenipotentiary and Special Envoy somewhere. It
is not Bolivia, nor the Argentine Republic, but some other fabulous region,
where the only fact is yellow fever.'

'And you really like him?'

'I hope so, for evidently it must be on love we shall have to live, one
half of our income being devoted to saddle-horses and the other to my
toilet.'

'How absurd you are!'

'No, not I. It is Mr. Walpole himself, who, not trusting much to my skill
at arithmetic, sketched out this schedule of expenditure; and then I
bethought me how simple this man must deem me. It was a flattery that won
me at once. Oh! Kate dearest, if you could understand the ecstasy of being
thought, not a fool, but one easily duped, easily deceived!'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'It is this, then, that to have a man's whole heart--whether it be worth
the having is another and a different question--you must impress him with
his immense superiority in everything--that he is not merely physically
stronger than you, and bolder and more courageous, but that he is mentally
more vigorous and more able, judges better, decides quicker, resolves more
fully than you; and that, struggl