 have easy command of all the pleasures
desired by a cultivated man. I want to live among beautiful things, and never to
be troubled by a thought of vulgar difficulties. I want to travel and enrich my
mind in foreign countries. I want to associate on equal terms with refined and
interesting people. I want to be known, to be familiarly referred to, to feel
when I enter a room that people regard me with some curiosity.«
    He looked steadily at her with bright eyes.
    »And that's all?« asked Marian.
    »That is very much. Perhaps you don't know how I suffer in feeling myself at
a disadvantage. My instincts are strongly social, yet I can't be at my ease in
society, simply because I can't do justice to myself. Want of money makes me the
inferior of the people I talk with, though I might be superior to them in most
things. I am ignorant in many ways, and merely because I am poor. Imagine my
never having been out of England! It shames me when people talk familiarly of
the Continent. So with regard to all manner of amusements and pursuits at home.
Impossible for me to appear among my acquaintances at the theatre, at concerts.
I am perpetually at a disadvantage; I haven't fair play. Suppose me possessed of
money enough to live a full and active life for the next five years; why, at the
end of that time my position would be secure. To him that hath shall be given -
you know how universally true that is.«
    »And yet,« came in a low voice from Marian, »you say that you love me.«
    »You mean that I speak as if no such thing as love existed. But you asked me
what I understood by success. I am speaking of worldly things. Now suppose I had
said to you: My one aim and desire in life is to win your love. Could you have
believed me? Such phrases are always untrue; I don't know how it can give anyone
pleasure to hear them. But if I say to you: All the satisfactions I have
described would be immensely heightened if they were shared with a woman who
loved me - there is the simple truth.«
    Marian's heart sank. She did not want truth such as this; she would have
preferred that he should utter the poor, common falsehoods. Hungry for
passionate love, she heard with a sense of desolation all this calm reasoning.
That Jasper was of cold temperament she had often
