He was suffering, too, from the malaise peculiar to men who suddenly acquire riches; secret impulses drove him to gratifications which would not otherwise have troubled his thoughts.  Of late he had been yielding to several such caprices.  One morning the idea possessed him that he must have a horse for riding, and he could not rest till the horse was purchased and in his stable.  It occurred to him once at dinner time that there were sundry delicacies which he knew by name but had never tasted; forthwith he gave orders that these delicacies should be supplied to him, and so there appeared upon his breakfast table a pate de foie gras.  Very similar in kind was his desire to possess Adela Waltham.

And the voice of his conscience lost potency, though it troubled him more than ever, even as a beggar will sometimes become rudely clamorous when he sees that there is no real hope of extracting an alms.  Richard was embarked on the practical study of moral philosophy; he learned more in these months of the constitution of his inner being than all his literature of ‘free thought’ had been able to convey to him.  To break with Emma, to cast his faith to the winds, to be branded henceforth in the sight of his intimate friends as a mere traitor, and an especially mean one to boot—­that at the first blush was of the things so impossible that one does not trouble to study their bearings.  But the wall of habit once breached, the citadel of conscience laid bare, what garrison was revealed?  With something like astonishment, Richard came to recognise that the garrison was of the most contemptible and tatterdemalion description.  Fear of people’s talk—­absolutely nothing else stood in his way.

Had he, then, no affection for Emma?  Hardly a scrap.  He had never even tried ’to persuade himself that he was in love with her, and the engagement had on his side been an affair of cool reason.  His mother had practically brought it about; for years it had been a pet project of hers, and her joy was great in its realisation.  Mrs. Vine and she had been lifelong gossips; she knew that to Emma had descended the larger portion of her parent’s sterling qualities, and that Emma was the one wife for such a man as Richard.  She talked him into approval.  In those days Richard had no dream of wedding above his class, and he understood very well that Emma Vine was distinguished in many ways from the crowd of working girls.  There was no one else he wished to marry.  Emma would feel herself honoured by his choice, and, what he had not himself observed, his mother led him to see that yet deeper feelings were concerned on the girl’s side.  This flattered him—­a form of emotion to which he was ever susceptible—­and the match was speedily arranged.