nnections, education
and intelligence were strictly on a par with those of the men with whom
he did business or amused himself. He had married five years ago. At the
time all his acquaintances had said he was very much in love; and he had
said so himself, frankly, because it is very well understood that every
man falls in love once in his life--unless his wife dies, when it may
be quite praiseworthy to fall in love again. The girl was healthy,
tall, fair, and in his opinion was well connected, well educated and
intelligent. She was also intensely bored with her home where, as
if packed in a tight box, her individuality--of which she was very
conscious--had no play. She strode like a grenadier, was strong and
upright like an obelisk, had a beautiful face, a candid brow, pure eyes,
and not a thought of her own in her head. He surrendered quickly to all
those charms, and she appeared to him so unquestionably of the right
sort that he did not hesitate for a moment to declare himself in love.
Under the cover of that sacred and poetical fiction he desired her
masterfully, for various reasons; but principally for the satisfaction
of having his own way. He was very dull and solemn about it--for no
earthly reason, unless to conceal his feelings--which is an eminently
proper thing to do. Nobody, however, would have been shocked had
he neglected that duty, for the feeling he experienced really was a
longing--a longing stronger and a little more complex no doubt, but no
more reprehensible in its nature than a hungry man's appetite for his
dinner.

After their marriage they busied themselves, with marked success, in
enlarging the circle of their acquaintance. Thirty people knew them
by sight; twenty more with smiling demonstrations tolerated their
occasional presence within hospitable thresholds; at least fifty others
became aware of their existence. They moved in their enlarged world
amongst perfectly delightful men and women who feared emotion,
enthusiasm, or failure, more than fire, war, or mortal disease; who
tolerated only the commonest formulas of commonest thoughts, and
recognized only profitable facts. It was an extremely charming sphere,
the abode of all the virtues, where nothing is realized and where
all joys and sorrows are cautiously toned down into pleasures and
annoyances. In that serene region, then, where noble sentiments are
cultivated in sufficient profusion to conceal the pitiless materialism
of thoughts and asp