climate--an appointment on some City Board--rubber shares and that
kind of thing--you know it all--a red brick house in South Kensington
and perhaps a little place in the country. He did not fill in the
picture--but I did for him--with the charmingly domesticated wife--
well connected: the typical "nice English Girl," heiress of a
comfortable fortune to supplement his own, which he candidly admitted
needs supplementing.

Of course he's not a mere vulgar fortune-hunter. He must be genuinely
in love with the nice English Girl. And that's where I upset HIS
apple-cart.

In fact, we are both in an IMPASSE. I'm not eligible for his post and I
shouldn't want it if I were. To my mind marriage is only conceivable
with a barbarian or a millionaire. From the sordid atmosphere of
English conjugality upon an income of anything less than an assured
5,000 pounds a year, good Lord deliver me! And you know my reasons for
adding another clause to my litany. Good Lord deliver me also from further
experience of the exciting vicissitudes of a stock-jobbing career!

Then again, apart from personal prejudices, I am appalled, quite
simply, at the cold-blooded marriage traffic that I see going on in
London. Any crime committed in the name of Love is forgivable, but to
sell a girl--soul and body to the highest bidder is to my mind, the
unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Frankly, I'm petrified with
amazement at the way in which mothers hurl their daughters at the head
of any man who will make a good settlement. There's Molly's sister--
she chases the game till she has corralled it, and once inside her
walls the unfortunate prey hasn't swallowed his first cup of tea before
she has wedded him in imagination to one of her girls--"How do you