matrimonial plans, he had felt himself falling irremediably in
love as one falls off a roof. He was too proud to be frightened. Indeed,
the sensation was too delightful to be alarming.

The inexperience of a man of forty is a much more serious thing than
the inexperience of a youth of twenty, for it is not helped out by the
rashness of hot blood. The girl was mysterious, as young girls are
by the mere effect of their guarded ingenuity; and to him the
mysteriousness of that young girl appeared exceptional and fascinating.
But there was nothing mysterious about the arrangements of the match
which Madame Leonie had promoted. There was nothing peculiar, either. It
was a very appropriate match, commending itself extremely to the young
lady's mother (the father was dead) and tolerable to the young lady's
uncle--an old emigre lately returned from Germany, and pervading, cane
in hand, a lean ghost of the ancien regime, the garden walks of the
young lady's ancestral home.

General D'Hubert was not the man to be satisfied merely with the woman
and the fortune--when it came to the point. His pride (and pride aims
always at true success) would be satisfied with nothing short of love.
But as true pride excludes vanity, he could not imagine any reason why
this mysterious creature with deep and brilliant eyes of a violet colour
should have any feeling for him warmer than indifference. The young lady
(her name was Adele) baffled every attempt at a clear understanding on
that point. It is true that the attempts were clumsy and made timidly,
because by then General D'Hubert had become acutely aware of the number
of his years, of his wounds, of his many moral imperfections, of his
secret unworthiness--and had incidentally learned by experience the
meaning of the word funk. As far as he could make out she seemed to
imply that, with an unbounded confidence in her mother's affection and
sagacity, she felt no unsurmountable dislike for the person of General
D'Hubert; and that this was quite sufficient for a well-brought-up young
lady to begin married life upon. This view hurt and tormented the pride
of General D'Hubert. And yet he asked himself, with a sort of sweet
despair, what more could he expect? She had a quiet and luminous
forehead. Her violet eyes laughed while the lines of her lips and chin
remained composed in admirable gravity. All this was set off by such
a glorious mass of fair hair, by a complexion so marvellous, by such
a gra