more candid, say to the reader: If out of the three whom his thoughts
fluttered round, Guy Darrell wished to select the one who would love him
best--love him with the whole fresh unreasoning heart of a girl whose
childish forwardness sprang from childlike innocence, let him dare the
hazard of refusal and of ridicule; let him say to Flora Vyvyan, in the
pathos of his sweet deep voice: "Come and be the spoiled darling of my
gladdened age; let my life, ere it sink into night, be rejoiced by the
bloom and fresh breeze of the morning."

But to say it he must wish it; he himself must love--love with all
the lavish indulgence, all the knightly tenderness, all the grateful
sympathising joy in the youth of the beloved, when youth for the lover
is no more, which alone can realise what we sometimes see, though loth
to own it--congenial unions with unequal years. If Darrell feel not that
love, woe to him, woe and thrice shame if he allure to his hearth one who
might indeed be a Hebe to the spouse who gave up to her his whole heart
in return for hers; but to the spouse who had no heart to give, or gave
but the chips of it, the Hebe indignant would be worse than Erinnys!

All things considered, then, they who wish well to Guy Darrell must range
with Alban Morley in favour of Miss Honoria Vipont. She, proffering
affectionate respect--Darrell responding by rational esteem. So,
perhaps, Darrell himself thought, for whenever Miss Vipont was named he
became more taciturn, more absorbed in reflection, and sighed heavily,
like a man who slowly makes up his mind to a decision, wise, but not
tempting.