too, the last few years had been spent without any high aims or fixed
pursuits. Maltravers had been living on the capital of his faculties
and affections in a wasteful, speculating spirit. It is a bad thing for
a clever and ardent man not to have from the onset some paramount object
of life.

All this considered, we can scarcely wonder that Maltravers should have
fallen into an involuntary system of pursuing his own amusements and
pursuits, without much forethought of the harm or the good they were to
do to others or himself. The moment we lose forethought, we lose sight
of duty; and though it seems like a paradox, we can seldom be careless
without being selfish.

In seeking the society of Madame de Ventadour, Maltravers obeyed but the
mechanical impulse that leads the idler towards the companionship which
most pleases his leisure. He was interested and excited; and Valerie's
manners, which to-day flattered, and to-morrow piqued him, enlisted his
vanity and pride on the side of his fancy. But although Monsieur de
Ventadour, a frivolous and profligate Frenchman, seemed utterly
indifferent as to what his wife chose to do--and in the society in which
Valerie lived, almost every lady had her cavalier,--yet Maltravers would
have started with incredulity or dismay had any one accused him of a
systematic design on her affections. But he was living with the world,
and the world affected him as it almost always does every one else.
Still he had, at times, in his heart, the feeling that he was not
fulfilling his proper destiny and duties; and when he stole from the
brilliant resorts of an unworthy and heartless pleasure, he was ever and
anon haunted by his old familiar aspirations for the Beautiful, the
Virtuous, and the Great. However, hell is paved with good intentions;
and so, in the meanwhile, Ernest Maltravers surrendered himself to the