h was, after
all, the perspective in which he had first viewed it. But, by degrees,
the hope that she loved him had grown and grown until it had become
unconsciously the supreme element of his existence,--the hope that stole
sweetly into his mind with the morning light, and stayed him through the
day, and blended into the dreams of darkness.

By inheritance, by tradition, by habits of thought, Austen Vane was an
American,--an American as differentiated from the citizen of any other
nation upon the earth. The French have an expressive phrase in speaking
of a person as belonging to this or that world, meaning the circle by
which the life of an individual is bounded; the true American recognizes
these circles--but with complacency, and with a sure knowledge of his
destiny eventually to find himself within the one for which he is best
fitted by his talents and his tastes. The mere fact that Victoria had
been brought up amongst people with whom he had nothing in common would
not have deterred Austen Vane from pressing his suit; considerations of
honour had stood in the way, and hope had begun to whisper that these
might, in the end, be surmounted. Once they had disappeared, and she
loved him, that were excuse and reason enough.

And suddenly the sight of Victoria with a probable suitor--who at once
had become magnified into an accepted suitor--had dispelled hope.
Euphrasia! Euphrasia had been deceived as he had, by a loving kindness
and a charity that were natural. But what so natural (to one who had
lived the life of Austen Vane) as that she should marry amongst those
whose ways of life were her ways? In the brief time in which he had seen
her and this other man, Austen's quickened perceptions had detected tacit
understanding, community of interest, a habit of thought and manner,--in
short, a common language, unknown to him, between the two. And, more than
these, the Victoria of the blissful excursions he had known was changed
as she had spoken to him--constrained, distant, apart; although still
dispensing kindness, going out of her way to bring Hilary home, and to
tell him of Hilary's accident. Rumour, which cannot be confined in casks
or bottles, had since informed Austen Vane that Mr. Rangely had spent the
day with Victoria, and had remained at Fairview far into the evening;
rumour went farther (thanks to Mrs. Pomfret) and declared the engagement
already an accomplished fact. And to Austen, in the twilight in front of
J