As she looked the matter closer in the
face the horrors became more startling and more manifest. Who would
have her in their houses? Where should she find society,--where the
possibility of lovers? What would be her life, and what her
prospects? Must she give up for ever the game for which she had
lived, and own that she had been conquered in the fight and beaten
even to death? Then she thought over the long list of her past
lovers, trying to see whether there might be one of the least
desirable at whom she might again cast her javelins. But there was
not one.
The tender messages from Mounser Green came to her day by day. Mounser
Green, as the nephew of her hostess, had been very kind to her; but
hitherto he had never appeared to her in the light of a possible lover.
He was a clerk in the Foreign Office, waiting for his aunt's money;--a
man whom she had met in society and whom she knew to be well thought of
by those above him in wealth and rank; but she had never regarded him
as prey,--or as a man whom any girl would want to marry. He was one of
those of the other sex who would most probably look out for prey, who,
if he married at all, would marry an heiress. She, in her time, had
been on good terms with many such a one,--had counted them among her
intimate friends, had made use of them and been useful to them,--but
she had never dreamed of marrying any one of them.
Pages:
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763