The beautiful and brilliant daughter of a fashionable widow, her income a trifle more than Carnaby's own; devoted to the life of cities, wherein she shone; an enchantress whose spell would not easily be broken, before whom her husband bowed in delighted subservience--such a woman might flatter Hugh's pride, but could scarce be expected to draw out his latent energies and capabilities.

This year, for the first time, he had visited no wild country; his journeying led only to Paris, to Vienna.
In due season he shot his fifty brace on somebody's grouse-moor, but the sport did not exhilarate him.
An odd and improbable alliance, that between Hugh Carnaby and Harvey Rolfe.

Yet in several ways they suited each other.

Old-time memories had a little, not much, to do with it; more of the essence of the matter was their feeling of likeness in difference.

Ten years ago Carnaby felt inclined to call his old school-fellow a 'cad'; Harvey saw nothing in Hugh but robust snobbishness.