Cashel Byron's Profession

After that dance Alice thought much about Lucian, and also about the

way in which society regulated marriages. Before Miss Carew sent

for her she had often sighed because all the nice men she knew of

moved in circles into which an obscure governess had no chance of

admission. She had received welcome attentions from them

occasionally at subscription balls; but for sustained intimacy and

proposals of marriage she had been dependent on the native youth of

Wiltstoken, whom she looked upon as louts or prigs, and among whom

Wallace Parker had shone pre-eminent as a university man, scholar,

and gentleman. And now that she was a privileged beauty in society

which would hardly tolerate Wallace Parker, she found that the nice

men were younger sons, poor and extravagant, far superior to Lucian

Webber as partners for a waltz, but not to be thought of as partners

in domestic economy. Alice had experienced the troubles of poverty,

and had never met with excellence in men except in poems, which she

had long ago been taught to separate from the possibilities of

actual life. She had, therefore, no conception of any degree of

merit in a husband being sufficient to compensate for slender means

of subsistence. She was not base-minded; nothing could have induced

her to marry a man, however rich, whom she thought wicked. She

wanted money; but she wanted more than money; and here it was that

she found supply failing to answer the demand. For not only were all

the handsome, gallant, well-bred men getting deeply into debt by

living beyond smaller incomes than that with which Wallace Parker

had tempted her, but many of those who had inherited both riches and

rank were as inferior to him, both in appearance and address, as

they were in scholarship. No man, possessing both wealth and

amiability, had yet shown the least disposition to fall in love with

her.

One bright forenoon in July, Alice, attended by a groom, went to the

park on horseback. The Row looked its best. The freshness of morning

was upon horses and riders; there were not yet any jaded people

lolling supine in carriages, nor discontented spectators sitting in

chairs to envy them. Alice, who was a better horsewoman than might

have been expected from the little practice she had had, appeared to

advantage in the saddle. She had just indulged in a brisk canter

from the Corner to the Serpentine, when she saw a large white horse

approaching with Wallace Parker on its back.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, expertly wheeling his steed and taking off his

hat at the same time with an intentional display of gallantry and

horsemanship. "How are you, Alice?"