well ask a girl in love with a young Lothario if she would
like him as much if he had been ugly and crooked. The high name of the
one man is as much a part of him as good looks are to the other. Thus,
though it was said of Madame de la Valliere that she loved Louis XIV:
for himself and not for his regal grandeur, is there a woman in the
world, however disinterested, who believes that Madame de la Valliere
would have liked Louis XIV. as much if Louis XIV. had been Mr. John
Jones; Honoria would not have bestowed her hand on a brainless,
worthless nobleman, whatever his rank or wealth. She was above that sort
of ambition; but neither would she have married the best-looking and
worthiest John Jones who ever bore that British appellation, if he had
not occupied the social position which brought the merits of a Jones
within range of the eyeglass of a Vipont.

Many girls in the nursery say to their juvenile confidants, "I will
marry the man I love." Honoria had ever said, "I will only marry the man
I respect." Thus it was her respect for Guy Darrell that made her honour
him by her preference. She appreciated his intellect--she fell in love
with the reputation which the intellect had acquired. And Darrell might
certainly choose worse. His cool reason inclined him much to Honoria.
When Alban Morley argued in her favour, he had no escape from
acquiescence, except in the turns and doubles of his ironical humour.
But his heart was a rebel to his reason; and, between you and me,
Honoria was exactly one of those young women by whom a man of grave
years ought to be attracted, and by whom, somehow or other, he never is;
I suspect, because the older we grow the more we love youthfulness of
character. When Alcides, having gone through all the fatigues of life,
took a bride in Olympus, he ought to have selected Minerva, but he chose
Hebe.

Will Darrell find his Hebe in Flora Vyvyan? Alban Morley became more and
more alarmed by the apprehension. He was shrewd enough to recognise in
her the girl of all others formed to glad the eye and plague the heart
of a grave and reverend seigneur. And it might well not only flatter the
vanity, but beguile the judgment, of a man who feared his hand would be
accepted only for the sake of his money, that Flora just at this moment
refused the greatest match in the kingdom, young Lord Vipont, son of
the new Earl of Montfort, a young man of good sense, high character,
well-looking as men go--heir to estate