It had been one of the chief checks on a strong and concentrated ambition.

But Lady Lucy had long made him understand that to marry according to her wishes would mean emancipation: a much larger income in the present, and the final settlement of her will in his favor.

It was amazing how she had taken to Diana! Diana had only to accept him, and his future was secured.
But though thoughts of this kind passed in tumultuous procession through the grooves of consciousness, they were soon expelled by others.

Marsham was no mere interested schemer.

Diana should help him to his career; but above all and before all she was the adorable brown-eyed creature, whose looks had just been shining upon him, whose soft hand had just been lingering in his! As he stood alone and spellbound in the dark, yielding himself to the surging waves of feeling which broke over his mind, the thought, the dream, of holding Diana Mallory in his arms--of her head against his breast--came upon him with a sudden and stinging delight.
Yet the delight was under control--the control of a keen and practical intelligence.