by his altered position.

But it gratified him to think that she had chosen him for the repository
of her tale; that she had told her terrible history to him. I fear that
some small part of this gratification was owing to her rank and wealth.
To be the one friend of a widowed countess, young, rich, and beautiful,
was something much out of the common way. Such confidence lifted him far
above the Wallikers of the world. That he was pleased to be so trusted
by one that was beautiful, was, I think, no disgrace to him; although I
bear in mind his condition as a man engaged. It might be dangerous, but
that danger in such case it would be his duty to overcome. But in order
that it might be overcome, it would certainly be well that she should
know his position.

I fear he speculated as he went along as to what might have been his
condition in the world had he never seen Florence Burton. First he asked
himself, whether, under any circumstances, he would have wished to marry
a widow, and especially a widow by whom he had already been jilted. Yes;
he thought that he could have forgiven her even that, if his own heart
had not changed; but he did not forget to tell himself again how lucky
it was for him that his heart was changed. What countess in the world,
let her have what park she might, and any imaginable number of thousands
a year, could be so sweet, so nice, so good, so fitting for him as his
own Florence Burton? Then he endeavored to reflect what happened when a
commoner married the widow of a peer. She was still called, he believed,
by her own title, unless she should choose to abandon it. Any such
arrangement was now out of the question; but he thought that he would
prefer that she should have been called Mrs. Clavering, if such a state
of things had come about. I do not know that he pictured to himself any
necessity--either on her part or on his, of abandoning anything else