"Do you think I don't know Florence Crawford?" he said, "and know that she is no wife for me--if she would have me--and she would as soon think of marrying me as the carver and gilder who makes her father's frames. Indeed, I dare say she'd rather marry the frame-maker, for he earns more money than I do, and could give her finer dresses. She has told me a hundred times that she will marry for money; that when she leaves her father's house--a bride, with innocent bridal-flowers upon her brow--she will bid farewell to her home on the same principle as that on which her housemaid leaves her--to better herself. Think of her in my carpetless painting-room at Highbury, looking up from her work to watch me at my easel, and beguiling me with hopeful speeches when I am depressed. One reads of that sort of wife in a novel. But can you find me such a one nowadays, Sigismund? The women of the present day live only to look beautiful and to be admired. They are pitiless goddesses, at whose shrines men sacrifice the best gifts of their souls. When I look at the splendour of these carriages, the glory of the butterfly creatures who ride in them, I think how many plodding wretches are toiling in Temple-chambers, or lecturing in the theatres of hospitals, or pacing to and fro on the dusty floor of the Stock Exchange, racked by the thought of hazardous time-bargains, in order that these frivolous divinities may have gorgeous raiment and high-stepping horses, and plant the arrows of envious rage in one another's tender bosoms. I think they learn the love of splendour in their cradles. They are proud of their lace-frocks and gaudy sashes before they can speak: their dolls are duchesses; or, what is worse, as Hippolyte Rigault has said, '_poupées aux camélias_.' And then they grow up, and some fine day a poor man falls in love with one of them, and finds that it would have been infinitely wiser to have dashed out his brains against a stone wall than to have been beguiled by the mad hope that a penniless lover's devotion could have any value in their sight." "Wait till you have made a name, Phil, and can afford as grand a place as the Fountains, and then see if Miss Crawford won't be civil to you. Come, we may as well slope, old fellow; it's nearly seven o'clock. The enchantress will not appear to-night. Let us go some where and dine, and forget her." "Dine by yourself, Sybarite," answered the painter. "A man whose most laborious picture sells for a ten-pound note has no right to whitebait and Moselle. I can buy half a pound of damp beef at the cook-shop as I go home. It will not be the first time that the silk-lining of my coat has been greased by a parcel from the cook-shop. I dare say I smell of beef sometimes when I call upon Florence Crawford." "But, Phil, when you know I'm so glad to stand Sam--" remonstrated Mr. Smythe.