His uncle was the incarnation of benevolence, certainly; but from that to accepting--much more postulating--the idea of a union between a young lady with a dowry presumptively brilliant and a penniless artist with no prospect of fame, there was a very long way.

Felix had lately become conscious of a luxurious preference for the society--if possible unshared with others--of Gertrude Wentworth; but he had relegated this young lady, for the moment, to the coldly brilliant category of unattainable possessions.

She was not the first woman for whom he had entertained an unpractical admiration.

He had been in love with duchesses and countesses, and he had made, once or twice, a perilously near approach to cynicism in declaring that the disinterestedness of women had been overrated.

On the whole, he had tempered audacity with modesty; and it is but fair to him now to say explicitly that he would have been incapable of taking advantage of his present large allowance of familiarity to make love to the younger of his handsome cousins.