him by her preference. She appreciated his intellect--she fell in love
with the reputation which the intellect had acquired. And Darrell might
certainly choose worse. His cool reason inclined him much to Honoria.
When Alban Morley argued in her favour, he had no escape from
acquiescence, except in the turns and doubles of his ironical humour.
But his heart was a rebel to his reason; and, between you and me, Honoria
was exactly one of those young women by whom a man of grave years ought
to be attracted, and by whom, somehow or other, he never is; I suspect,
because the older we grow the more we love youthfulness of character.
When Alcides, having gone through all the fatigues of life, took a bride
in Olympus, he ought to have selected Minerva, but he chose Hebe.

Will Darrell find his Hebe in Flora Vyvyan? Alban Morley became more and
more alarmed by the apprehension. He was shrewd enough to recognise in
her the girl of all others formed to glad the eye and plague the heart of
a grave and reverend seigneur. And it might well not only flatter the
vanity, but beguile the judgment, of a man who feared his hand would be
accepted only for the sake of his money, that Flora just at this moment
refused the greatest match in the kingdom, young Lord Vipont, son of the
new Earl of Montfort, a young man of good sense, high character, well-
looking as men go--heir to estates almost royal; a young man whom no girl
on earth is justified in refusing. But would the whimsical creature
accept Darrell? Was she not merely making sport of him, and if, caught
by her arts, he, sage and elder, solemnly offered homage and hand to that
/belle dedaigneuse/ who had just doomed to despair a comely young magnet
with five times his fortune, would she not hasten to make hirer the
ridicule of London.

Darrell had perhaps his secret reasons for thinking otherwise, but he did
not confide them even to Alban Morley. This much only will the narrator,