nd man if you accept him. With Arnault it is different. In
mind you are near enough of kin to marry. As long as you complied with
fashionable and worldly proprieties, he would be content; but a man
with a heart and soul in his body would perish in the desert of a home
that your selfishness would create."

"It's awful for you to talk to me in this way!" she whined, wincing
and crying under his arraignment.

"It's awful that I have to speak to you in this way, either to make
you realize what deformities your beauty hides, so that you may apply
the remedy, or else, if you will not, to promote your union with a man
content to take for a wife a belle, and not a woman.

"I suppose I am chiefly to blame, though, or you would be different,"
he added, with a dark, introspective look. "I was proud of you as
a beautiful child, and tried to win your love by indulgence. Heaven
knows, I would like to be a different man, but it's all a breathless
hurry after bubbles that vanish when grasped! Well, what do you
propose to do? You see that you can't hesitate much longer."

"I will decide soon," she answered, sullenly. Although her conscience
echoed his words, and she felt their justice, her pride prevailed, and
she permitted him to depart without another word.

CHAPTER XXIV

"I'LL SEE HOW YOU BEHAVE"

The dawn of the following sacred day was bright, beautiful, and
serene, bringing to the world a new wealth of opportunity. Miss
Wildmere began its hours depressed and undecided. Her conscience and
better angel were pleading; she felt vaguely that her life and its
motives were wrong, and was uncomfortable over the consciousness. Her
phase of character, however, was one of the most hopeless. It was true
that her vanity had grown to the proportions of a disease, but even
this might be overcome. Her father's stern words had wounded it
terribly, and she had experienced twinges of self-disgust. But another
trait had become inwrought, by long habit, with every fibre of her
soul--selfishness. It was almost impossible to give up her own way and
wishes. Graydon Muir pleased her fancy, and she was bent on marrying
him. Her father's assurance that she would bring him disappointment,
not happiness, weighed little. Too many men had told her that she
was essential to their happiness to permit qualms on this score. Her
conscience did shrink, to some extent, from a loveless, business-like
marriage, and her preference for Graydon made such a