“And her name?”
“Alice—Alicia, some call it.”
“Alice is better. And how came she to be a widow so very young? What is her story?”
“I know nothing of it; how should I? I could tell nothing of my own,” said Maitland, sternly.
“Rich as well as beautiful,—what a prize, Maitland! I can scarcely imagine why you hesitate about securing it.”
Maitland gave a scornful laugh, and with a voice of bitterness said: “Certainly my pretensions are great. I have fortune—station— family—name—and rank to offer her. Can you not remind me, Carlo, of some other of my immense advantages?”
“I know this much,” said the other, doggedly, “that I never saw you fail in anything you ever attempted.”
“I had the trick of success once,” said Maitland, sorrowfully, “but I seem to have lost it. But, after all, what would success do for me here, but stamp me as an adventurer?”
“You did not argue in that fashion two years ago, when you were going to marry a Spanish princess, and the half-sister of a queen.”
“Well, I have never regretted that I broke off the match. It estranged me, of course, from him; and indeed he has never forgiven me.”