smiled at her, said "Yes," good-humoredly, to almost everything,
and found slight incentive to depart from his usual reticence. She
had learned the limits of her range, and knew that within it there
was entire liberty, beyond it a will like adamant. They got on admirably
together, for she craved nothing further in the way of liberty and
companionship than was accorded her, while he soon recognized that
the prize carried off from other competitors could no more follow
him into his realm of thought and action than she could accompany
him on a campaign. At last he had concluded philosophically that
it was just as well. He was engaged in matters that should not be
interfered with or babbled about, and he could come and go without
questioning. He had occasionally thought: "If she were such a woman
as I have read of and imagined,--if she could supplement my reason
with the subtilty of intuition and the reticence which some of her
sex have manifested,--she would double my power and share my inner
life, for there are few whom I can trust. The thing is impossible,
however, and so I am glad she is content."

As for Marian, she had promised, in his view, to be but a charming
repetition of her mother, with perhaps a mind of larger calibre.
She had learned more and had acquired more accomplishments, but all
this resulted, possibly, from her better advantages. Her drawing-room
conversation seemed little more than the ordinary small talk of the
day, fluent and piquant, while the girl herself was as undisturbed
by the vital questions of the hour and of life, upon which he dwelt,
as if she had been a child. He knew that she received much attention,
but it excited little thought on his part, and no surprise.
He believed that her mother was perfectly competent to look after
the proprieties, and that young fellows, as had been the case with
himself, would always seek pretty, well-bred girls, and take their