Thus, during the next few years, as things turned out, Will’s position and prospects improved very rapidly. He was regarded as one of our most rising composers; critics spoke of him as the sole representative and restorer of the serious English poetical opera. Monetary troubles no longer oppressed his soul; he had leisure to write—and to write, if he would, the thing that pleased him. His position was secured—so much so, indeed, that judicious mammas gave him frequent invitations to their gayest At Homes and garden parties. But he successfully avoided all snares so set for him. Many people expressed no little surprise that so nice a young man—and a poet to boot—with a position like his, and such excellent Principles, should refrain from marriage. Society expects that every man will do his duty; it intends him to marry as soon as he has means to relieve it becomingly of one among its many superfluous daughters. But, in spite of Society, Will still remained single, and met all the casual feelers of interested acquaintances as to the reasons which induced him so to shirk his duty as a British citizen with a quiet smile of self-contained resolution. Rue came to London now for each succeeding season. Will was much at her house, and a very real friendship existed between them. Busybodies wondered, indeed, that those two young people, who were so thick together, didn’t stop scandal’s mouth by marrying as they ought to do. The busybodies could see no just cause or impediment why they should not at once be joined together in holy matrimony. The young woman was rich; the young man was a genius. She was “mad for him,” every one said, in every one’s usual exaggerated phraseology; and as for him, though perhaps he wasn’t quite so wildly in love, yet he liked her so well, and was so often in her company, that it would surely be better to avoid whispers at once by marrying her offhand, like the earl in the “Bab Ballads,” “quite reg’lar, at St George’s!” The busybodies were surprised he didn’t see it so himself; it really was almost somebody’s duty, they thought, to suggest the idea to him. But perhaps Mrs Palmer’s money was strictly tied up; in which case, of course—Society broke off short, and shrugged its sapient shoulders. To some extent, in fact, Will agreed with them himself. He almost fancied he would have proposed to Rue—if he wasn’t so fond of her. As he sat with her one evening by the drawing-room fire at Hans Place, before the lights were turned on, during blind-man’s holiday, he said to her suddenly, after a long, deep pause, “I daresay, Rue, you sometimes wonder why it is I’ve never tried to ask you to marry me.” Rue gave a little start of half-tremulous surprise. He could see how the colour mounted fast to her cheek by the glow of the firelight. She gave a faint gasp as she answered candidly, with American frankness, “Well, to tell you the truth, Will, I’ve fancied once or twice you were just going to do it.”