Could she doubt—she who had learned in one short season to know what the world was made of and what it most valued—could she, steeped to the lips in the wisdom of Lady Kirkbank's set, doubt for an instant that she was making a better match in the eye of society, than if she had married a man of the highest lineage in all England, a peer of the highest rank, without large means? She knew that money was power, that a man might begin life as a pot-boy or a greengrocer, a knacker or a dust contractor, and climb to the topmost pinnacles, were he only rich enough. She knew that society would eat such a man's dinners and dance at his wife's balls, and pretend to think him an altogether exceptional man, make believe to admire him for his own sake, to think his wife most brilliant among women, if he were only rich enough. And could she doubt that society would bow down to her as Lady Lesbia Smithson? She had learned a great deal in her single season, and she knew how society was influenced and governed, almost as well as Sir Robert Walpole knew how human nature could be moulded and directed at the will of a shrewd diplomatist. She knew that in the fashionable world every man and every woman, every child even, has his or her price, and may be bought and sold at pleasure. She had her price, she, Lesbia, the pearl of Grasmere; and the price having been fairly bidden she had surrendered to the bidder.
'I suppose I always meant to marry him,' she thought, pausing in her promenade to gaze across the verdant landscape, a fertile vale, against a background of low hills. All the landscape, to the edge of those hills, belonged to Mr. Smithson. 'Yes, I must have meant to give way at last, or I should hardly have tolerated his attentions. It would have been a pity to refuse such a place as this; and, he is quite gentlemanlike; and as I have done with all romantic ideas, I do not see why I should not learn to like him very much.'
She dismissed the idea of Smithson lightly, with this conclusion, which she believed very virtuous; and then as she resumed her walk her thoughts reverted to the Park Lane Palace.
'I hardly know whether I like it,' she mused languidly; 'beautiful as it is, it is only a reproduction of bygone splendour, and it is painfully excruciating now. For my own part I would much rather have the shabbiest old house which had belonged to one's ancestors, which had come to one as a heritage, by divine right as it were, instead of being bought with newly made money. To my mind it would rank higher. Yet I doubt if anybody nowadays sets a pin's value upon ancestors. People ask, Who is he? but they only mean, How much has he? And provided a person is not absolutely in trade, not actually engaged in selling soap, or matches, or mustard, society doesn't care a straw how his money has been made. The only secondary question is, How long will it last? And that is of course important.'
Musing thus, wordly wisdom personified, the maiden looked up and saw her lover entering at the light little iron gate which gave entrance to this feminine Eden. She went to meet him, looking all simplicity and freshness in her white morning gown and neat little Dunstable hat. It seemed to him as he gazed at her almost as if this delicate, sylph-like beauty were some wild white flower of the woods personified.
She gave him her hand graciously, but he drew her to his breast and kissed her, with the air of a man who was exercising an indisputable right. She supposed that it was his right, and she submitted, but released herself as quickly as possible.
'My dearest, how lovely you look in this morning light,' he exclaimed, 'while all the other women are upstairs making up their faces to meet the sun, and we shall see every shade of bismuth by-and-by, from pale mauve to purple.'
'It is very uncivil of you to say such a thing of your guests,' exclaimed Lesbia.
'But they all indulge in bismuth—you must be quite aware of that. They call the stuff by different names—Blanc Rosati, Crême de l'Imperatrice, Milk of Beauty, Perline, Opaline, Ivorine—but it means bismuth all the same. Expose your fashionable beauty to the fumes of sewer-gas, and that dazzling whiteness would turn to a dull brown hue, or even black. Thank heaven, my Lesbia wears real lilies and roses. Have you been here long?'
'About half an hour'