She hardened herself after the fight and resolved that, if she chose, she could still make almost any man love her. That she could easily fascinate she knew. Most people were subject to her easy charm and to the delightfully unaffected manner which no amount of vanity had ever been able to rid her of. Surely the temporarily fascinated man might easily be changed into the permanent lover! Fear assailed her certainly when she thought of the danger of deliberately contrasting with her maturity the vividness of youth. To do what she thought of doing would be to run a great risk. When she had married Lord Sellingworth she had provided herself with a foil to her beauty and to her comparative youth. To marry a young man would be to make herself the foil. He would emphasize her age by his lack of years. Could she dare it?
Again she hardened herself and resolved that she would dare it. The wildness in her came uppermost, rose to recklessness. After me the deluge! She might not be happy long if she married a young husband, but she might be happy for a time. The mere marriage would surely be a triumph for her. And if she had three years, two years, even one year of happiness, she would sing a Laus Deo and let the deluge close over her head.
She began, in woman’s quiet but penetrating way, to look about her. She met many young men in the world, in fact nearly all the young eligible men of the time. Many of them came to her house, for she often gave parties to which she asked not only the “old guard” and the well-known men of the day, but also the young married women. Now she began to give small dances to which she asked pretty young girls. There was a ballroom built out at the back of her house. It was often in use. The pretty young girls began to say she was “a dear” to bother so much about them. Dancing men voted her a thundering good hostess and a most good-natured woman. In popularity she almost cut out the Duchess of Wellingborough, who sometimes gave dances, too, for young people.
Really through it all she was on the watch, was seeking the possible husband.
Presently she found the man with whom she could imagine being almost desperately happy if he would only fall in with her hidden views. They were so carefully hidden that not one of her friends, not one of the “old guard,” suspected that she had made up her mind to marry again and to make what is universally called “a foolish marriage.”
His name was Rupert Louth, and he was the fourth son of an impecunious but delightful peer, Lord Blyston. He was close upon thirty, and had spent the greater part of his time, since his twentieth year, out of England. He had ranched in Canada, and had also done something vague of the outdoor kind in Texas. He had fought, and was a good man of his hands. His health was splendid. He was as hard as nails in condition, and as lively and ready as they make them. Many things he could do, but one thing he had never been able to do. He had never been able to make money. His gift lay rather in the direction of joyously spending it. This gift distracted his father, who confided to Lady Sellingworth his fears for the lad’s—he would insist on calling Rupert the lad—for the lad’s future. Here he was back on the family’s hands with expensive tastes and no prospects whatever!
“And he’s always after the women, too!” said Lord Blyston, with admiring despair. “He’s been away from them so long there’s no holding him.”
After a pause he added:
“My dear Adela, if you want to do me a good turn find the lad a wife. His poor mother’s gone, or she would have done it. What he wants is a wife who can manage him, with a decent amount of money.”
Without exactly saying so, Lady Sellingworth implied that she would see what she could do for Rupert.