He saw by the sadness in her look and the way in which she shut her mouth fast that some especially anxious thought connected with this stay in London troubled her. “Won’t you tell me what is the other thing?” he asked, gently. “You have already said you regard me as a friend, and it will be a relief to you to tell me your worries, since you say you have never any one to speak to.” “I don’t know quite how to put it,” she said, as she meditatively stroked her horse’s neck and ears with her whip. “It seems so egotistical to be boring you with so much about myself. But this season, this presentation to the Queen, and the balls and parties that will follow, for which I have been trained so long, what will it all mean in the end, but that I am to show off my graces and accomplishments and wear smart clothes, so that I may attract an offer of marriage? And if any come, there will be no question of love or liking on my part; my father’s intention is just to hand me over to the best bidder. The Chase is gloomy and dreary and prison-like, and I am often very lonely; but it is a thousand times better than to be married to the man who has the highest title and the largest fortune among those who may condescend to take notice of me,” she went on, bitterly. “Why, if I could stoop to such a marriage, there would not be a scullery-maid at the Chase, or a cottager on my father’s property, who would not have the right to despise me!” “But you might meet some one among these men of rank and wealth whom you might like,” suggested Lord Carthew. “Having a title and money doesn’t absolutely debar any one from being capable of inspiring love.” “I suppose it is my training and my contradictory nature,” she said, “but I must own that the fact of a man wearing a title would be a reason with me for having a strong prejudice against him to start with.” “Isn’t that rather unfair?”