Had her father been willing, she might have been his wife now, and have been wandering hand in hand in some sequestered spot beneath the clear blue sky of Italy.

_He_ had loved her, while Norbert----.
Norbert was leading one of those mad, headstrong lives which have but two conclusions--ruin or suicide.

His name had been put up for election at a fashionable club by his uncle, the Chevalier de Septraor, as soon as he arrived in Paris.

He had been elected at once, being looked on as a decided acquisition to the list of members.

He bore one of the oldest names to be found among the French nobility, while his fortune--gigantic as it was--had been magnified threefold by the tongue of common report.
He was received with open arms everywhere, and lived in a perfect atmosphere of flattery.