only because his ambition was dominant and his tastes had changed.
That his will was strong, that he had tastes to develop, was because of
the blood which filled his veins, and of nothing else. He had gone
with a current absolutely, though swimming and always keeping his head
above water until he swam ashore. Yet, as told in the beginning of
this chapter, he always said to me that he did not regret this
experience of abandonment. And he became a man seeking place and money.

He liked to visit his old home, and was faithful to his old crony, his
aging mother, still; and, for a time, after any of these sojourns among
the birds and squirrels and in the forest, he would be distrait and
preoccupied with something; but all this would wear off, and then would
come the press for place and pelf again. He was not entirely
unsuccessful, and finally he married, as a prospering young man
should--married a woman with money and presence for a hostess, and with
traits to make her potent. He lived with her for a season, and found
another, without his dreams and sympathies and understandings, but with
a will and a way.

I do not care to tell the story of it,--indeed, I do not know it,--but
the man learned the old-fashioned lesson, which seems to hold good
still, that for a really comfortable wedded life a little love, as a
preliminary, is a good thing always--usually a requisite. The woman
lacked neither perception nor good sense. It was she who proposed,
since they were ill-mated, they should live apart, and he consented,
with only such show of courtesy as might conceal his height of
gladness. There were money features to the arrangement made, and it
was all dignified and thoughtful. The world knew nothing of the
agreement, though that generation of vipers, the relations of Mrs.
Grundy, wondered why Mr. Harlson's wife and he so lived apart, and if