her edification, which came to her with
much of the savour of a lecture. A girl, when she is thoroughly in
love, as surely was the case with Lily, likes to receive hints as to
her future life from the man to whom she is devoted; but she would,
I think, prefer that such hints should be short, and that the lesson
should be implied rather than declared;--that they should, in fact,
be hints and not lectures. Crosbie, who was a man of tact, who
understood the world and had been dealing with women for many years,
no doubt understood all this as well as we do. But he had come to
entertain a notion that he was an injured man, that he was giving
very much more than was to be given to him, and that therefore he
was entitled to take liberties which might not fairly be within
the reach of another lover. My reader will say that in all this he
was ungenerous. Well; he was ungenerous. I do not know that I have
ever said that much generosity was to be expected from him. He had
some principles of right and wrong under the guidance of which it
may perhaps be hoped that he will not go utterly astray; but his
past life had not been of a nature to make him unselfish. He was
ungenerous, and Lily felt it, though she would not acknowledge it
even to herself. She had been very open with him,--acknowledging the
depth of her love for him; telling him that he was now all in all to
her; that life without his love would be impossible to her: and in a
certain way he took advantage of these strong avowals, treating her
as though she were a creature utterly in his power;--as indeed she
was.

On that evening he said no more of Johnny Eames, but said much of
the difficulty of a man establishing himself with a wife in London,
who had nothing but his own moderate income on which to rely. He did
not in so many words tell her that if her friends could make up for
her two or three thousand pounds,--that being much less than he had
expected when he first made his offer,--this terrible difficulty
would be removed; but he said enough to make her understand that the
world would call him very imprudent in taking a girl who had nothing.
And as he spoke of these things, Lily remaining for the most part
silent as he did so, it occurred to him that he might talk to her
freely of his past life,--more freely than he would have done had he
feared that he might lose her by any such disclosures. He had no fear
of losing her. Alas! might it not be possible that he had som