of a candidate for the hand to which I would fain myself aspire,--a
candidate with pretensions in every way far superior to my own."

An older or a more cynical man than Alain de Rochebriant might well have
found something suspicious in a confession thus singularly volunteered;
but the Marquis was himself so loyal that he had no doubt of the loyalty
of Graham.

"I reply to you," he said, "with a frankness which finds an example in
your own. The first fair face which attracted my fancy since my arrival
at Paris was that of the Italian demoiselle of whom you speak in terms of
such respect. I do think if I had then been thrown into her society, and
found her to be such as you no doubt truthfully describe, that fancy
might have become a very grave emotion. I was then so poor, so
friendless, so despondent! Your words of warning impressed me at the
time, but less durably than you might suppose; for that very night as I
sat in my solitary attic I said to myself, 'Why should I shrink, with an
obsolete old-world prejudice, from what my forefathers would have termed
a mesalliance? What is the value of my birthright now? None,--worse
than none. It excludes me from all careers; my name is but a load that
weighs me down. Why should I make that name a curse as well as a burden?
Nothing is left to me but that which is permitted to all men,--wedded and
holy love. Could I win to my heart the smile of a woman who brings me
that dower, the home of my fathers would lose its gloom.' And therefore,
if at that time I had become familiarly acquainted with her who had thus
attracted my eye and engaged my thoughts, she might have become my
destiny; but now!"

"But now?"