burst her chains.  She had preferred to suffer this loss than to sacrifice her chances of future aggrandisement.  And now she looked back and remembered those sunset walks by the sea, and all her thoughts and feelings in those silent summer hours; and she smiled at herself, half in scorn, half in pity, for her own weakness.  How easily she had learned to do without him who at that hour seemed the better part of her existence.  A good deal of gaiety and praise, a little mild flirtation at Kirkbank Castle, and lo! the image of her first lover began to grow dim and blurred, like a faded photograph.  A season at Cannes, and she was cured.  A week in London, and that first love was a thing of the past, a dream from which the dreamer awaketh, forgetting the things that he has dreamt.

Remembering all this she told herself that she had no heart, that love or no love was a question of very little moment, and that the personal qualities of the man whom she chose for a husband mattered nothing to her, provided that his lands and houses and social status came up to her standard of merit.  She had seen Mr. Smithson’s houses and lands; and she was distinctly assured that he would in due course be raised to the peerage.  She had, therefore, every reason to be satisfied.

Having thus reasoned out the circumstances of her new life, she accepted her fate with a languid grace, which harmonised with her delicate and patrician beauty.  Nobody could have for a moment supposed from her manner that she loved Horace Smithson; but nobody had the right to think that she detested him.  She accepted all his attentions as a thing of course.  The flowers which he strewed beneath her footsteps, the pearls which he melted in her wine—­metaphorically speaking—­were just ‘good enough’ and no more.  This afternoon, when Mr. Smithson asked her how she liked the arrangements of the saloon and cabin, she said she thought they would do very nicely.  ‘They would do.’  Nothing more.

‘It is dreadfully small, of course,’ she said, ’when one is accustomed to rooms:  but it is rather amusing to be in a sort of doll’s house, and on deck it is really very nice.’

This was the most Mr. Smithson had for his pains, and he seemed to be content therewith.  If a man will marry the prettiest girl of the year he must be satisfied with such scant civility as conscious perfection may give him.  We know that Aphrodite was not altogether the most comfortable wife, and that Helen was a cause of trouble.

Mr. Smithson sat in a bamboo chair beside his mistress, and looked ineffably happy when she handed him a cup of tea.  Sky and sea were one exquisite azure—­the colours of the boats glancing in the sunshine as if they had been jewels; here an emerald rudder, there a gunwale painted with liquid rubies.  White sails, white frocks, white ducks made vivid patches of light against the blue.  The landscape yonder shone and sparkled as if it had been incandescent.  All the world of land and sky and sea was steeped in sunshine.  A day on which to do nothing, read nothing, think nothing, only to exist.