there is no need for me to remind you of its various members, nor of
the strong attraction Marion, then a girl of twenty-five, exercised
upon the men belonging to it. Nor have you forgotten, I feel sure,
the adroit way in which she contrived so often to find herself alone
with me, both in the house and out of it, even to the point of
sometimes placing me in a quasi-false position. That she tempted me
is, perhaps, an overstatement, though that she availed herself of
every legitimate use of feminine magic to entrap me is certainly the
truth. Opportunities of marriage, it was notorious, had been
frequently given to her, and she had as frequently declined them; she
was older than her years; to inexperience she certainly had no claim:
and from the very first it was clear to me--if conceited, I cannot
pretend that I was also blind--that flirtation was not her object and
that marriage was. Yet it was marriage with a purpose that she
desired, and that purpose had to do, I felt, with sacrifice. She
burned to give her very best, her all, and for my highest welfare. It
was in this sense, I got the impression strangely, that she had need
of me.

The battle seemed, at first, uneven, since, as a woman, she did not
positively attract me. I was first amused at her endeavours and her
skill; but respect for her as a redoubtable antagonist soon followed.
This respect, doubtless, was the first blood she drew from me, since
it gained my attention and fixed my mind upon her presence. From that
moment she entered my consciousness as a woman; when she was near me
I became more and more aware of her, and the room, the picnic, the
game of tennis that included her were entirely different from such
occasions when she was absent, I became self-conscious. It was
impossible to ignore her as formerly had been my happy case.