He believed in his own abilities.  Should it ever be needful, he could turn to journalism, for which, undoubtedly, he had some aptitude.  But why do anything at all, in the sense of working for money?  Every year he felt less disposed for that kind of exertion, and had a greater relish of his leisurely life.  Mrs. Tarrant never rebuked him; indeed she had long since ceased to make inquiry about his professional views.  Perhaps she felt it something of a dignity to have a grandson who lived as gentleman at large.

But now, in the latter days of August, the gentleman found himself, in one most important particular, at large no longer.  On returning from Teignmouth to Staple Inn he entered his rooms with a confused, disagreeable sense that things were not as they had been, that his freedom had suffered a violation, that he could not sit down among his books with the old self-centred ease, that his prospects were completely, indescribably changed, perchance much for the worse.  In brief, Tarrant had gone forth a bachelor, and came back a married man.

Could it be sober fact?  Had he in very deed committed so gross an absurdity?

He had purposed no such thing.  Miss.  Nancy Lord was not by any means the kind of person that entered his thoughts when they turned to marriage.  He regarded her as in every respect his inferior.  She belonged to the social rank only just above that of wage-earners; her father had a small business in Camberwell; she dressed and talked rather above her station, but so, now-a-days, did every daughter of petty tradesfolk.  From the first he had amused himself with her affectation of intellectual superiority.  Miss.  Lord represented a type; to study her as a sample of the pretentious half-educated class was interesting; this sort of girl was turned out in thousands every year, from so-called High Schools; if they managed to pass some examination or other, their conceit grew boundless.  Craftily, he had tested her knowledge; it seemed all sham.  She would marry some hapless clerk, and bring him to bankruptcy by the exigencies of her ‘refinement.’

So had he thought of Nancy till a few months ago.  But in the spring-time, when his emotions blossomed with the blossoming year, he met the girl after a long interval, and saw her with changed eyes.  She had something more than prettiness; her looks undeniably improved.  It seemed, too, that she bore herself more gracefully, and even talked with, at times, an approximation to the speech of a lady.  These admissions signified much in a man of Tarrant’s social prejudice—­so strong that it exercised an appreciable effect upon his every-day morals.  He began to muse about Miss.  Lord, and the upshot of his musing was that, having learnt of her departure for Teignmouth, he idly betook himself in the same direction.

But as for marriage, he would as soon have contemplated taking to wife a barmaid.  Between Miss.  Lord and the young lady who dispenses refreshment there were distinctions, doubtless, but none of the first importance.  Then arose the question, in what spirit, with what purpose, did he seek her intimacy?  The answer he simply postponed.