been hardly treated by Fortune at the outset, marred
much of his present enjoyment, accompanied as it was by a misgiving that,
do what he might, that early inferiority would cling to him, like some rag
of a garment that he must wear over all his 'braverie,' proclaiming as it
did to the world, 'This is from what I sprung originally.'

It was not by any exercise of vanity that Atlee knew he talked better, knew
more, was wittier and more ready-witted than the majority of men of his age
and standing. The consciousness that he could do scores of things _they_
could not do was not enough, tarnished as it was by a misgiving that, by
some secret mystery of breeding, some freemasonry of fashion, he was not
one of them, and that this awkward fact was suspended over him for life, to
arrest his course in the hour of success, and balk him at the very moment
of victory.

'Till a man's adoption amongst them is ratified by a marriage, he is not
safe,' muttered he. 'Till the fate and future of one of their own is
embarked in the same boat with himself, they'll not grieve over his
shipwreck.'

Could he but call Lady Maude his wife! Was this possible? There were
classes in which affections went for much, where there was such a thing
as engaging these same affections, and actually pledging all hope of
happiness in life on the faith of such engagements. These, it is true,
were the sentiments that prevailed in humbler walks of life, amongst
those lowly-born people whose births and marriages were not chronicled in
gilt-bound volumes. The Lady Maudes of the world, whatever imprudences
they might permit themselves, certainly never 'fell in love.' Condition
and place in the world were far too serious things to be made the sport of
sentiment. Love was a very proper thing in three-volume novels, and Mr.
Mudie drove a roaring trade in it; but in the well-bred world, immersed in
all its engagements, triple-deep in its projects and promises for pleasure,
where was the time, where the opportunity, for this pleasant fooling?
That luxurious selfishness in which people delight to plan a future life,
and agree to think that they have in themselves what can confront narrow
fortune and difficulty--these had no place in the lives of persons of
fashion! In that coquetry of admiration and flattery which in the language
of slang is called spooning, young persons occasionally got so far
acquainted that they agreed to be married, pretty much as they agreed
to