The girl was to be tied for life to a man she despised and hated, to a man who did not even care for her, as she was now convinced, to a man with a past of which she knew little and of which the few incidents she had learned repelled her now, instead of attracting her.

She fancied how he had spoken to those other women, much as he had spoken to her, perhaps a little more eloquently as, perhaps, he had not been thinking of their fortunes but of themselves, but still always in that high-comedy tone with the studied gesture and the cadenced intonation.

She did not know whether they deserved her pity, those two whom he pretended to have loved, but she was ready to pity them, nameless as they were.

The one was dead, the other, at least, had been wise enough to forget him in time.
Then she thought of what must happen after her marriage, when he had got her fortune and could take her away to the society in which he had always lived.

There, of course, he would meet women by the score with whom he was and long had been on terms of social intimacy far closer than he had reached with her in the few weeks of their acquaintance.
Doubtless, he would spend such time as he could spare from gambling, in conversation with them.