that some such person as Mr. Smithson was essential to her
existence, just as a butler is a necessity in a house. One may not like
the man, but the post must be filled.

Again, if she were to throw over Mr. Smithson, and speculate upon her
chances of next year, what hope had she of doing better in her second
season than in her first? The horizon was blank. There was no great
_parti_ likely to offer himself for competition. She had seen all that
the market could produce. Wealthy bachelors, high-born lovers, could not
drop from the moon. Lesbia, schooled by Lady Kirkbank, knew her peerage
by heart; and she knew that, having missed Lord Hartfield, there was
really no one in the Blue Book worth waiting for. Thus, caring only for
those things which wealth can buy, she had made up her mind that she
could not do without Horace Smithson's money; and she must therefore
needs resign herself to the disagreeable necessity of taking Smithson
and his money together. The great auctioneer Fate would not divide the
lot.

She told herself that for her a loveless marriage was, after all, no
prodigious sacrifice. She had found out that heart made but a small
figure in the sum of her life. She could do without love. A year ago she
had fancied herself in love with John Hammond. In her seclusion at St.
Bees, in the long, dull August days, sauntering up and down by the edge
of the sea, in the melancholy sunset hour, she thought that her heart
was broken, that life was worthless without the man she loved. She had
thought and felt all this, but not strongly enough to urge her to any
great effort, not keenly enough to make her burst her chains. She had
preferred to suffer this loss than to sacrifice her chances of future
aggrandisement. And now she looked back and remembered those sunset
walks by the sea, and all her thoughts and feelings in those silent
summer hours; and she smiled at herself, half in scorn, half in pity,
for her own weakness. How easily she had learned to do without him who
at that hour seemed the better part of her existence. A good deal of
gaiety and praise, a little mild flirtation at Kirkbank Castle, and lo!
the image of her first lover began to grow dim and blurred, like a faded
photograph. A season at Cannes, and she was cured. A week in London, and
that first love was a thing of the past, a dream from which the dreamer
awaketh, forgetting the things that he has dreamt.

Remembering all this she told herself that she ha