Whitsand was the as yet unfashionable seaside place which had attracted the speculative eye of Luckworth Crewe.  For the past two years he had been trying to inspire certain men of capital with his own faith in the possibilities of Whitsand; he owned a share in the new hotel just opened; whenever his manifold affairs allowed him a day’s holiday, he spent it at Whitsand, pacing the small esplanade, and meditating improvements.  That these ‘improvements’ signified the conversion of a pretty little old-world spot into a hideous brand new resort of noisy hordes, in no degree troubled Mr. Crewe’s conscience.  For his own part, he could appreciate the charms of Whitsand as it stood; he was by no means insensible to natural beauty and the ancient peace which so contrasted with his life of every day; but first and foremost in his mind came the necessity of making money; and to fill his pockets he would no more hesitate about destroying the loveliest spot on earth, than the starving hunter would stay his hand out of admiration for bird or beast.

It was with much delight that he heard of Mrs. Damerel’s retreat to Whitsand.  To the note in which she acquainted him with her arrival there he replied effusively.  ’The patronage of a few really fashionable people, such as yourself, would soon do wonders.  We must have a special paragraph in the local paper, drawing attention to your being there’—­and so on.  An answer by return of post rather disappointed him.  On no account, wrote Mrs. Damerel, must her name be specially mentioned in the paper.  She had taken very simple lodgings, very inexpensive, and wished to live as quietly as possible.  But, after seeing the place, she quite agreed with Mr Crewe that it had a future, and if he could run down some day, whilst she was here, it would give her great pleasure to hear his projects explained on the spot.

Crewe ran down.  In speaking of Mrs. Damerel as a ‘really fashionable’ person, he used no insincerity; from their first meeting he had seen in this lady his ideal of social distinction; she was, in fact, the only woman of skilfully pretentious demeanour with whom he had ever spoken.  Her distant likeness to Nancy Lord interested and attracted him; her suave superiority awed his conscious roughness; she seemed to him exquisitely gracious, wonderfully sweet.  And as, little by little, he attained the right to think of her almost as a friend, his humble admiration became blended with feelings he took particular care not to betray, lest he should expose himself to ridicule.  That her age exceeded his own by some years he was of course aware, but this fact soon dropped out of his mind, and never returned to it.  Not only did he think Mrs. Damerel a type of aristocratic beauty, he saw in her countenance all the freshness and the promise of youth.

The slight mystery attaching to her position only increased his susceptibility to her charms.  It seemed to him very probable that she had but a moderate income; perhaps she was not free from anxieties on that score.  But such a woman would of course marry again, and marry well.  The thought grew troublesome, and presently accounted for ebullitions of wrath, accompanied by more than usually vigorous language, when business matters went wrong.