The parliamentary career was a question of time. There was much to be done before he essayed that. He must get his name before the public a little first, make up his mind what his polities were going to be, and get about into society. With regard to matrimony, he felt that the sooner he thought seriously about that the better. There is a certain formula to be gone through, even in the prosaic courtship which he intended his to be. He wanted a certain amount of beauty, a knowledge of the world, and an agreeable manner. He wanted to marry a head to his dinner-table, a hostess, a something to be agreeable to his guests, and to get him invited out. Wealth or rank he wasn’t particular about; that would be harder to get, and he might have a lot of rivalry. He stood in front of the glass and ran his fingers through his hair. Yes, he was fairly good-looking, still young, wealthy, and a pleasant talker. There was no reason why he should not secure just what he wanted if he kept his eyes open. He didn’t want to fall in love; he had no idea of anything of that sort. And yet he did. His fate came to him as it comes to the most unromantic men. It came to him about a fortnight after his interview with Birnie. In his first desire to get his name well connected with philanthropy for future benefit to himself, he gave twenty pounds to a bazaar in connection with some hospital for children, or something of the sort. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he saw that the appeals were going all over the parish, and so he sent his twenty pounds, to beat his neighbours and get his first advertisement. His donation brought him a letter of thanks from the vicar and a special request to be present. He went to the bazaar, to see the vicar and to show himself—to make a start on his new war-path. He flung away a pound’s worth of silver on shapeless pincushions and impossible penwipers, and walked through the place, jostled and bored. He had shaken hands with the vicar, and been introduced to a canon and to a rich old lady patroness, and was elbowing his way through a crowd of giggling girls and cane-sucking young men, when a little girl stopped him with a timid request for his patronage. He looked down and saw a child whom he guessed to be about ten years old—pretty, pale-faced, with soft brown hair and big blue eyes. She held up to him a bunch of violets. ‘Please to buy a bunch of sweet violets, sir.’ He put his hand in his pocket. ‘I’ve got no silver,’ he said. He looked into the child’s face as he spoke, expecting to hear her say that gold would do. But the little one had not been trained to the brazen effrontery that leers and grimaces under the coquettishly worn mantilla of charity. ‘Oh, please, if you come to our stall we’ll give you change. Come this way.’ Gurth involuntarily followed the child to a stall in the corner, where a lady was selling flowers. The lady smiled as the child brought her prize up to be dealt with.