He admired her, he would be proud to have such a wife.

"She's just the sort I need, to adorn the station I'm going to have." But what of his dreams of family life, of easy, domestic undress, which she would undoubtedly find coarse and vulgar?
"It would be like being on parade all the time--she's been used to that sort of thing her whole life, but it'd make me miserable." Could he afford a complete, a lifelong sacrifice of comfort to gratify a vanity?
He had devoted much thought to the question of marriage.

On the one hand he wanted money; for in politics, with the people so stupid and so fickle, a man without an independence, at least, would surely find himself, sooner or later, in a position where he must choose between retiring and submitting himself to some powerful interest--either a complete sale, or a mortgage hardly less galling to pride, no less degrading to self-respect.

On the other hand he wanted a home--a wife like his mother, domestic, attentive, looking out for his comfort and his health, herself taking care of the children.

And he had arrived at a compromise.