hat her love
had been given and then lost she might have borne it without weeping.
But now, in carrying on this vain affair of hers, in devoting herself
to a lover who had, with her own consent, passed away from her, she
had spent the sweet fresh years of her youth, and all those who knew
her would know that it had been so. He had told her that it would be
her fate to purchase for herself a husband with her beauty. It might
be so. At any rate she did not doubt her own beauty. But, if it were
to be so, then the romance and the charm of her life were gone. She
had quite agreed that six hundred a year, and lodgings in Marylebone,
would be quite unendurable; but what was there left for her that
would be endurable? He could be happy with the prospect of Gertrude
Tringle's money. She could not be happy, looking forward to that
unloved husband who was to be purchased by her beauty.

CHAPTER XXIX.

AT MERLE PARK. NO. 1.

Sir Thomas took the real holiday of the year at Glenbogie,--where
he was too far removed from Lombard Street to be drawn daily into
the vortex of his millions. He would stay usually six weeks at
Glenbogie,--which were by no means the happiest weeks of the year. Of
all the grand things of the world which his energy and industry had
produced for him, he loved his millions the best. It was not because
they were his,--as indeed they were not. A considerable filing off
them,--what he regarded as his percentage,--annually became his own;
but it was not this that he loved. In describing a man's character it
is the author's duty to give the man his due. Sir Thomas liked his
own wealth well enough. Where is the rich man who does not?--or where
is the poor man who does not wish that he had it to like? But what he
loved were the millions with which Travers and Treason dealt. He was
Travers and Treason, though his name did not even appear in the firm,
and he dealt with the millions. He could affect the rate of money
throughout Europe, and emissaries from national treasuries would
listen to his words. He had been Governor and Deputy-Governor of the
Bank of England. All the City respected him, not so much because he
was rich, as that he was one who thoroughly understood millions. If
Russia required to borrow some infinite number of roubles, he knew
how to arrange it, and could tell to a rouble at what rate money
could be made by it, and at what rate money would certainly be lost.
He liked his millions, and was th