Apparently, he had got into quite the right set--a rather political set, she gathered.

He told her that he had been pressed to stand for a well-nursed Liberal Constituency, and implied that but for the catastrophe of his wife's death he would now be seated in Parliament, with a fair prospect in the future of place and distinction.

Of course, it was the money which had done it, she told herself, though he had undoubted cleverness, she knew, and, as he pointed out, his experience in a particular South American republic--very much to the fore just now in European diplomacy--stood to his advantage.

His marriage had given him opportunity.

He alluded without bad taste to his dead wife's generosity.