were almost
equally beyond recognition. If by neglect of its wings, an eagle should
sink to a dodo, it would then recognize only the laws of dodo life. For
the dodos of humanity, did not one believe in a consuming fire and an
outer darkness, what would be left us but an ever-renewed _alas_! It is
truth and not imperturbability that a man's nature requires of him; it
is help, not the leaving of cards at doors, that will be recognized as
the test; it is love, and no amount of flattery that will prosper;
differences wide as that between a gentleman and a cad will contract to
a hair's breadth in that day; the customs of the trade and the picking
of pockets will go together, with the greater excuse for the greater
need and the less knowledge; liars the most gentleman-like and the most
rowdy will go as liars; the first shall be last, and the last first.

Hesper's day drew on. She had many things to think about--things very
different from any that concerned Mary Marston. She was married; found
life in London somewhat absorbing; and forgot Mary.

CHAPTER XXI.

MR. REDMAIN.

A life of comparatively innocent gayety could not be attractive to Mr.
Redmain, but at first he accompanied his wife everywhere. No one knew
better than he that not an atom of love had mingled with her motives in
marrying him; but for a time he seemed bent on showing her that she
needed not have been so averse to him. Whether this was indeed his
design or not, I imagine he enjoyed the admiration she roused: for why
should not a man take pride in the possession of a fine woman as well
as in that of a fine horse? To be sure, Mrs. Redmain was not quite in
the same way, nor quite so much his, as his horses were, and might one
day be a good deal less his than she was now; but in the mean time she
was, I fancy, a pleasant break in the gathering monotony of his
existence. As he got more accustomed to the sight of her in a crowd,
however, and at the same time to her not very interesting company in
private, when she took not the smallest pains to please him, he
gradually lapsed into his former ways, and soon came to spend his
evenings in company that made him forget his wife. He had loved her in
a sort of a way, better left undefined, and had also, almost from the
first, hated her a little; for, following her cousin's advice, she had
appealed to him to save her, and, when he evaded her prayer, had
addressed him in certain terms too appropriate to be agree