mind. Mutimer was
not capable of love in the highest sense; he was not, again, endowed with strong
appetite; but his nature contained possibilities of refinement which, in a
situation like the present, constituted motive force the same in its effects as
either form of passion. He was suffering, too, from the malaise peculiar to men
who suddenly acquire riches; secret impulses drove him to gratifications which
would not otherwise have troubled his thoughts. Of late he had been yielding to
several such caprices. One morning the idea possessed him that he must have a
horse for riding, and he could not rest till the horse was purchased and in his
stable. It occurred to him once at dinner time that there were sundry delicacies
which he knew by name but had never tasted; forthwith he gave orders that these
delicacies should be supplied to him, and so there appeared upon his breakfast
table a pâté de foie gras. Very similar in kind was his desire to possess Adela
Waltham.
    And the voice of his conscience lost potency, though it troubled him more
than ever, even as a beggar will sometimes become rudely clamorous when he sees
that there is no real hope of extracting an alms. Richard was embarked on the
practical study of moral philosophy; he learned more in these months of the
constitution of his inner being than all his literature of free thought had been
able to convey to him. To break with Emma, to cast his faith to the winds, to be
branded henceforth in the sight of his intimate friends as a mere traitor, and
an especially mean one to boot - that at the first blush was of the things so
impossible that one does not trouble to study their bearings. But the wall of
habit once breached, the citadel of conscience laid bare, what garrison was
revealed? With something like astonishment, Richard came to recognise that the
garrison was of the most contemptible and tatterdemalion description. Fear of
people's talk - absolutely nothing else stood in his way.
    Had he, then, no affection for Emma? Hardly a scrap. He had never even tried
to persuade himself that he was in love with her, and the engagement had on his
side been an affair of cool reason. His mother had practically brought it about;
for years it had been a pet project of hers, and her joy was great in its
realisation. Mrs. Vine and she had been lifelong gossips; she knew that to Emma
had descended the larger portion of her parent's sterling qualities, and that
Emma was the one wife for such a man as Richard. She talked him into