A CERTAIN change was no doubt observable in Marion. It might have been supposed that a life so secluded and reserved as hers had been thus far, would not have encountered the novel conditions of wealth and fashion without some awkwardness and bewilderment. But it was not so. She met the Goddess of Fortune half-way, and seemed in no respect at a loss how to greet her. In fact, the only sign she betrayed of being unaccustomed to abundant worldly resources was the activity and despatch she showed in taking advantage of them; as if life offered nothing but a variety of diversions, and it was incumbent upon one who appreciated life at its true value to canvass that variety in the shortest space possible. Whether she held, further, that the variety was to be inexhaustible, or the life short, did not appear. Philip was at first pleased with her alacrity; afterwards, his pleasure was less, and his surprise greater. He had promised himself some gratification in introducing his wife to the greater society, and initiating her into its splendors and amusements: but he found, not only that his leadership was unnecessary, but that he would have to exert himself to be the leader at all. Marion was fully equal to her position and opportunities. She faced the sun unshrinkingly, and, indeed, with a smile almost as of half-contemptuous familiarity. When she referred to the simplicity and difficulty of her previous experience, it was generally to expose the humorous aspect of the contrast with the present.

“What a beautiful thing wealth is!” she exclaimed one day to her husband.

“Glad you think so,” the latter replied, cautiously: for he seldom could be sure, nowadays, whether Marion’s observations would turn out serious or cynical.

“’Tis the best missionary in the world,” she continued; “it Christianizes even tradesmen, and makes them self-sacrificing. And the curious part is, that ’tis not their being wealthy themselves, but their knowing us to be, that makes them so magnanimous. When mother and I were poor—pardon my mentioning such a thing, but ’tis only between ourselves—our tradesmen not only permitted us to pay our bills, but insisted on our doing so promptly: and if we got behindhand, they growled about bailiffs. But now—la! bless you, the mention of a bill hurts their feelings, and to pay one would break their hearts. It’s a blessed change of heart in them; and would have been more blessed still if it had only happened to come before our change of pocket, instead of after.”

“If we go on at our present rate, both they and we may relapse,” said Philip, laughing. “Twenty thousand pounds capital is not twenty thousand a year.”

“It is, for one year; and who knows what may happen after that? We might count on two years, even: the faith of the tradesmen would hold out so long at least.”

“They don’t ask us to pay now only because they know their money is safe,” said Mrs. Lockhart, with her pathetic literalness. “And they don’t lose anything, because our orders are larger, and their prices are higher. And you should be just as careful not to run in debt, my dear, when you are rich as when you are poor.”

Marion looked at her mother with an odd smile. “I wish you’d let me forget you,” she said at length. “You’ve been encouraging me all my life to be a woman of fashion, and now you turn against me. But I’m determined not to be baulked!”

And in truth, Marion had made a good beginning. The old house in Hammersmith had been shut up (it was her desire that it should be neither let nor sold) and they had gone into the new and improved mansion whereof Fillmore had spoken to Perdita. They kept a carriage and horses, half-a-dozen servants, and an excellent table; gave parties and routs to their fashionable acquaintance, and accepted the like civilities from them. It was the thing in society at that moment to go to the Lancasters: Philip was a genius, besides being nearly related to Lord Seabridge; Marion was charming, witty, and fully up to her position; her father, it was understood, had been a distinguished officer and a personal friend of the Iron Duke. Among the most notable of their new friends was old Lady Flanders, who not only honored their drawing-room with her presence when the rest of the world was there, but quite often took the trouble to drop in on them informally. She had once or twice met Mrs. Lockhart in London and at the Baths, when the latter was lovely Fanny Pell, forty years or so ago, and she now came ostensibly to renew her acquaintance with that lady, and to talk over the old times. But in the midst of these amiable reminiscences, it was observable that she gave a good deal of attention to young Mrs. Lancaster, who seemed to have a peculiar interest for her.

“You like having money, Mrs. Lancaster,” her ladyship remarked one day, after examining critically a new dress which Marion had on.

“I cannot deny it, Lady Flanders.”

“Nonsense! A woman like you can deny anything. But you’re quite in the right not to deny it. We hear a great deal from silly people about the dignity of poverty. That is just what poverty is not: poverty is not dignified! ’Tis hard enough to hold up one’s head at the best of times—such arrant knaves and humbugs as we all are, and all of us except the fools know it: but on an empty pocket ’tis impossible! I recollect when I was in Egypt, about thirty years ago, meeting a Bedouin Arab who, I thought for a while, was an exception to the rule. He hadn’t a rag on him, except a greasy turban and a yard of ragged cloak dangling down his back; he was as dirty as a stable floor; but he had the bearing of a prince—though not of a good many princes I could name, neither. That man (said I) is an incarnation of dignity and a type of poverty, both in one: and if he’d have me, I’d marry him to-night! What were we talking about?”

“That poverty could not be dignified.”

“Aye: very true. So, just to prove my rule by this exception, said I, ‘My friend, I’ll give you fourpence to go up to the top of that pyramid and be back here again in five minutes.’ He dropped his dignity—it was about all he had to drop, as I told you—and scuttled up that pyramid like a squirrel. He earned his fourpence, and I married his lordship.” Here Lady Flanders took snuff, and added, “You may live to find out, Mr. Lancaster, that you’ve been too avaricious. You weren’t satisfied with a wife; you must have a fortune into the bargain. Look out you don’t find yourself without both some fine morning.”

“Your ladyship is kind to forewarn me,” said Philip, who was always rubbed the wrong way by Lady Flanders.

“You don’t believe me: but you are a poet and a philosopher, and you comprehend the structure of the universe too clearly to see into your own domestic business. You don’t know, at this moment, what to make of your wife’s extravagance and ambition. She used to be quite different, didn’t she? And you understood her character so well, you were sure prosperity couldn’t spoil her.—They are all like that, my dear,” she continued, turning to Marion; “they load us down to the water’s edge, or below it, and expect us to dance about and mind the helm just as prettily as when we were unburdened. They don’t know our weapons; they can feel them in their hearts, or in their purses, or in what they call their honor; but they can never see what strikes them, or how they are struck. I don’t blame you, my dear: give him all he deserves: but I have a regard for you, and shouldn’t like to see you crippling yourself in the process. But you have a head to see your way, as well as a heart to feel his impositions. I shall look for you to give a good account of him a year hence. ’Tis a pity he hasn’t a title. But we may be able to get him one: I’ll see about it. I have found such things very useful.”

It was difficult to say what Lady Flanders meant by this kind of diatribes, which, indeed, were never more embarrassing than when she took it for granted that her interlocutor was sagacious enough to understand her. It was plain, nevertheless, that this awful old aristocrat possessed an uncomfortable keenness of insight; and that she generally put the worst construction on whatever she saw. Philip perceived that she enjoyed opposition, as giving her an opportunity for repartee, in which she was fatally proficient; and therefore he seldom entered into a discussion with her. But what she said about Marion, and her general tone regarding her, appealed to a certain obscure misgiving in Philip’s own mind, and made him feel more ill at ease than he would have liked to confess. He smiled as complacently as he could; but the smile was painfully superficial.

From Marion herself, meanwhile, he could obtain little or no satisfaction. He did not like to speak to her “seriously” on the subject, partly because he could not exactly define to himself what the subject was, and partly, perhaps, because he feared to discover that the subject, be it what it might, would turn out more serious than might be agreeable.

“You deserve credit for being so civil to that hideous old woman,” he would sometimes say.

“Not at all!” Marion would reply laughingly. “Lady Flanders represents the world. I am going to be a woman of the world, and so I pay court to her. She tells me a great many things ’tis necessary I should know. The objection is on my side.”

“You are going to be a woman of the world, are you?”

“La! of course. What would you have me do? I used to be very busy washing clothes and getting the dinner, in the old times; but now I have a laundress and a cook and a housekeeper, and nothing to attend to except inviting our guests and making myself agreeable to them. When we were in Hammersmith I was what I had to be; now I can be what I please; and it pleases me to be like ... other fine ladies.”

“Could you not make yourself agreeable to your guests and to me at the same time?”

“To you? Why, you are my husband!”

“Very true, Mrs. Lancaster.”

“What can be more agreeable to you than to see your wife popular in Society?”

“We thought of something better than that when ... we first fell in love with each other,” said Philip, fixing his eyes upon her.

“Something different: but was it better? or so wise? Are not a hundred people more amusing than one? At all events, we must take the evil with the good of our position. Love in a cottage is one thing, you know, and love in a palace another.”

“No love at all, perhaps you mean?”

“No such love, that’s all.”

“Well, if you’re content, I’ve no more to say.”

“Content! How should I not? My ambition isn’t satisfied, though. I mean to be spoken of as ‘the beautiful Mrs. Lancaster’ one of these days. Oh, it will come to pass, I assure you! The first thing one generally says, when one is shown a fashionable beauty, is, ‘What! that homely creature!’—’tis all a matter of dress and effrontery. I shall do very well. What do you think of my gown?”

“Very fine. But what about the effrontery?”

“At all events, that costs no money,” said Marion, with a laugh.

Marion’s social success was undeniably great. She possessed both tact and courage—two qualities not always found in company; and she had more intelligence than most of the women she came in contact with. Her figure and movement were fine, her dress always in good taste; her voice agreeable; her face had a poignancy and variety of expression that produced the effect of beauty without being beautiful. At her presentation at Court, the Prince of Wales, who had complimented her mother more than a generation before, informed Marion that she made him wish he was young again, begad! She speedily found herself surrounded by a circle of gentlemen who were only too ready to express their admiration for her; prominent among whom was the little Irish poet, Thomas Moore, who was not disheartened by the unceremonious treatment she had given him at their first interview: and she completed her conquest of him by singing a song which he vowed he had composed in her praise. Young Mrs. Lancaster was in demand everywhere: her box at the theatre and the opera was always crowded; when she rode or drove in the Row, she was attended by a retinue of cavaliers: she played cards, danced, talked politics, and, in short, ignored the inside and celebrated the outside of life. Lady Flanders looked on at it all, grinned horribly beneath her shaggy eyebrows, and neglected no opportunity of congratulating Philip on being the husband of so brilliant a woman. “You must look out for your laurels, Mr. Lancaster,” she would add: “‘Iduna’ was well enough for the idyllic period, but you must give us something better now; make the lady elope with the Lord Chamberlain, and leave the Sea-God in the lurch.” Mrs. Lockhart, on the other hand, whose nature it was always to enjoy what was good in the world, and not to see or believe in the bad, was placidly happy in the conviction that her daughter was as prosperous as she deserved to be, and as merry as she seemed. Marion was uniformly careful not to disturb the maternal serenity, though once she startled the poor lady by exclaiming “Oh, I wish Mr. Grant were alive!” with a passionate moan in her voice like the outcry of a soul in despair.

Was anything the matter, then? Marion had no confidants, except solitude, which tells no tales. But it may be conjectured that, when she yielded to her husband on the question of the legacy, she gave up, once for all, her view of right, and set herself to adopt his own. “If Philip wants wealth,” she might have said to herself, “it must be to reap the worldly advantages of it. These are necessary to his happiness: and ’tis my duty, therefore, to help him, as a wife should, to be happy in his own way. I take my law from him; I will have no half measures: and he shall have just the fashionable, dashing, rattling wife that he wants.”

Having laid down this general principle, it would be characteristic of Marion to act upon it fervently. No doubt she was far from being incapable of appreciating the charm that lies in social dissipation; but she would perhaps have thrown herself into it with less of recklessness and abandon, had she gained access to it by some less humiliating path. There was a pride and nobility in her that had the effect of making her give more energy and prominence to conduct which opposed her conscience than to that which was approved by it. She startled and perplexed Philip, and fascinated him also; he found in her a vigor and activity superior to his own. She out-Heroded Herod; he had not suspected all this latent power; and yet he felt that something tender and sweet and infinitely valuable, was missing. There were between them no more silent sympathies and intuitive agreements. What was to be done and said, not thought and felt, was now the subject of their intercourse. Their communication was more lively but less satisfying than of yore.

What was Marion’s idea and intention in this? Did she really believe that it was what her husband wanted? Logically, perhaps, she did so; but scarcely in her heart. Women, when they are logical, generally are so in an extreme and illogical way; as if to demonstrate how contemptible logic is. More than half her vivacity may have been assumed in order to provoke Philip into finding fault with it; and yet, if he did find fault with it, she would profess herself at a loss to know what on earth would please him. If he suggested moderation, she would say “No: I must be one thing or the other.” If he replied “Be the other, then,” she would answer, “Too late, now I have learnt how pleasant dissipation is.” And if he asked her whether dissipation were the true end of marriage? she would laugh and reply that one cannot have everything in this world.

Thus, by degrees, were these two married lovers, who had begun their career under such fair auspices, drawing away from each other: what was best in each of them was starving for lack of nourishment; but Marion, at least, was proud enough to starve to death rather than confess to suffering. As a matter of course, since they could not meet in the only way worth meeting, they looked away from each other as much as possible. Philip tried to find consolation in his poetry: but the faculty of happy concentration and abstraction no longer came to him as formerly. The loving and confidential talks which he and Marion had been wont to have, about what he was writing, or purposing to write, were hardly practicable now; but, if he found the craving for intellectual sympathy too strong in him, there was always one place where he was sure to find it, and that was in the private boudoir of the Marquise Desmoines. She always welcomed him with loveliness and delightful words: she looked him in the eye and spoke to the point: he felt the immediate contact of her mind and nature, and experienced from it a secret sense of luxury and consolation. At first, Perdita used to inquire courteously after Marion; but after a time these inquiries became rarer, and finally ceased. Nor did Philip happen to mention these visits to his wife: what would it matter to her where he went or what he found to converse about? She probably had her own interests and occupations, of which he was ignorant. She would only laugh, and say that he was fulfilling Lady Flanders’ predictions.

Once in a while, in the midst of all this gayety and resonance, Marion’s laugh would suddenly end in a long, shuddering sigh, and her eyes would grow hot and dry. But she would laugh again, and utter some witty, extravagant speech, if she thought her husband was observing her. And once, at night, Philip chanced to awake, and fancied that Marion was weeping, and the bed was shaken by her smothered sobs. But, when he spoke to her, she started, and declared, after a moment, that she had been asleep, and had a nightmare. “I dreamt Lady Flanders had grown young and beautiful,” she said, “and wore a dress handsomer than mine: and it broke my heart!” Whereupon Philip said no more.