Arnold conceived himself a brilliant match for any girl below the titled aristocracy; he had grown so accustomed to magnify his place, to regard himself as one of the pillars of the Empire, that he attributed the same estimate to all who knew him.

Of personal vanity he had little; purely personal characteristics did not enter, he imagined, into a man's prospects of matrimony.

Certain women openly flattered him, and these he despised.

His sense of fitness demanded a woman intelligent enough to appreciate what he had to offer, and sufficiently well-bred to conceal her emotions when he approached her.

These conditions Miss Derwent fulfilled.