It would not be fair to May to say that he was false to Gladys Dehon. His passion for her, too vehement, had fairly burned itself out. In the two years since he had left her, May’s heart had, as it were, banked its volcanic fires. However fissured were its ravined depths, the surface was at rest, and the lava-flood that concealed it was already cool. And a beautiful huntswoman who had ridden out of sight of her first husband, as had Gladys Dehon, was not at all the sort of person for middle-aged Austin May to marry and bring to Boston. These things he felt for some weeks before he proposed to Miss Rutherford, and she was precisely the sort of girl he saw was best. If old Uncle Austin had selected her himself, he could not have made a better choice. And well, thought May, he saw the motives of his kind old uncle’s will, and the wisdom born of much experience, and long consideration and a knowledge of Eclipse claret that had prompted it. A young man, if left to himself, would choose him a different wife for each three years of his life. It is only after he has run the gamut of all impossibilities that he settles down upon the proper thing. And this, at last, May felt assured that he had done. May did not pretend to himself that he loved Georgiana Rutherford as he had loved Gladys Dehon. Even now, he was not blind to that. But he thought that she was pretty, and well-placed, and good style; and she had a large fortune, and a still larger family connection, all of the very best securities. In fact, May, at least so far as he admitted to himself, did not do justice to the qualities of Miss Rutherford. Miss Rutherford was a very charming girl; much cleverer and much better educated, to say nothing of her style and beauty, than any embryo Gladys Dehon that May had ever seen. She was perfectly mistress of her own heart, as she was of her own fortune, and it was dangerous to present to her foreigners, lest they afterward shot themselves. They always went wild about her; much to Miss Rutherford’s discomfort. Some would besiege her; others would curse her; others, still, say evil things about her in the true Parisian manner. Miss Rutherford remained “more than usual calm” through it all. She had the reputation of being a flirt, but it was not so. She tried her adorers, Portia-like, successively; the moment that they failed to reach a certain standard, it was entirely right and fair for her to drop them. Some of them would cry that they were hurt, and these she contemned from her very soul. She did not regard such matters as subjects for tears. Marriage was a step in life, like any other, and only deserved more serious consideration because it was final.