young politician was a source of unconcealed annoyance to her, and
in the same degree as she expressed her disapproval of him Comus
was careful to maintain and parade the intimacy. Its existence, or
rather its continued existence, was one of the things that faintly
puzzled the young lady whose sought-for favour might have been
expected to furnish an occasion for its rapid dissolution.

With two suitors, one of whom at least she found markedly
attractive, courting her at the same moment, Elaine should have had
reasonable cause for being on good terms with the world, and with
herself in particular. Happiness was not, however, at this
auspicious moment, her dominant mood. The grave calm of her face
masked as usual a certain degree of grave perturbation. A
succession of well-meaning governesses and a plentiful supply of
moralising aunts on both sides of her family, had impressed on her
young mind the theoretical fact that wealth is a great
responsibility. The consciousness of her responsibility set her
continually wondering, not as to her own fitness to discharge her
"stewardship," but as to the motives and merits of people with whom
she came in contact. The knowledge that there was so much in the
world that she could buy, invited speculation as to how much there
was that was worth buying. Gradually she had come to regard her
mind as a sort of appeal court before whose secret sittings were
examined and judged the motives and actions, the motives
especially, of the world in general. In her schoolroom days she
had sat in conscientious judgment on the motives that guided or
misguided Charles and Cromwell and Monck, Wallenstein and
Savonarola. In her present stage she was equally occupied in
examining the political sincerity of the Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, the good-faith of a honey-tongued but possibly loyal-