It was a somewhat perplexing thing that one could be really fond of an eligible man and yet shrink from marrying him, and there was no doubt whatever that the one she had just sent away had in several respects a good deal to offer her.
She admitted that London was, as she expressed it, getting hold of her.

She supposed that its influence was insidious, for she no longer looked on its frivolities with half-amused contempt, as she had at first.

She realized the vast control that that city had over so much of the rest of the world, and that when some of the men with whom she had lightly laughed and chatted pulled the strings, new industries sprang up far away in the scorching tropics or on the desolate prairie, and new laws were made for hosts of dusky people.

It was certainly a legitimate bargain Kinnaird had suggested.

She had wealth sufficient for them both, and he could offer her the entry into a world where wealth well directed meant power, and this she undoubtedly desired to possess.