o be true. But there was no disproving
it; and Hilary was so much in love that for a while, for nearly a year,
he thought more about Marjory's likes and dislikes than his own.

And Marjory's likes included such a vast number of other people.

But the chance, the hundred-to-one chance, of turning him into an
ordinary human being--loving, suffering, understanding--was lost.

Once more in Life's Market he had got what he wanted at his own price,
and with the cessation of competitive examinations all ambition seemed
dead in him.

And what of Marjory?

Nobody, not even her father and mother who loved her so tenderly, ever
knew what Marjory felt. She had chosen her lot. She would abide by
it. No doubt she saw her husband as he was, but as time went on she
realised how few chances he had had to be anything different. She was
an only child herself. She, too, had adoring parents, but their
adoration took a different form from the somewhat abject and wholly
blind devotion of Hilary's mother. General and Mrs Grantly saw to it
from the very first that they should love their daughter because she
was lovable, and not only because she was theirs. They had troops of
friends, and exercised a large hospitality that entailed a constant
giving out of sympathy for and interest in other people. That there
was much suffering, and sadness, and sin in the world was never
concealed from Marjory in her happy girlhood; that it had not touched
her personally was never allowed to foster the belief that it did not
exist. That there was also much happiness, and gaiety, and kindness
was abundantly manifest in her own home, and every scope was given her
for the development of the social instincts which were part of her
charm. She went to her husband at twenty "handled and made," and
twenty years of married life had only perfected the work.

As a girl she was perhaps intellectually intolerant. Stupid people
annoyed her, and she possessed all youth's enthusiastic admiration for
achievement, for people who did things, who had arrived. Hilary
Ffolliot was a new type to her. His brilliant record impressed her.
His cultivated taste and extraordinary versatility attracted her, and
his evident admiration gratified her girlish vanity.

She was a proud woman, and if she had made a mistake she was not going
to let it spoil her life. Only once did she come near showing her
heart even to her mother. It was a year after the Kitten was born,
wh