The lady had an income.

That was the first and most indispensable consideration.

She was fairly well-born, was a lady, and was beautiful.

In doing Lord Fawn justice, we must allow that, in all his attempted matrimonial speculations, some amount of feminine loveliness had been combined with feminine wealth.

He had for two years been a suitor of Violet Effingham, who was the acknowledged beauty of the day,--of Violet Effingham who, at the present time, was the wife of Lord Chiltern; and he had offered himself thrice to Madame Max Goesler, who was reputed to be as rich as she was beautiful.