After that dance Alice thought much about Lucian, and also about the
way in which society regulated marriages. Before Miss Carew sent
for her she had often sighed because all the nice men she knew of
moved in circles into which an obscure governess had no chance of
admission. She had received welcome attentions from them
occasionally at subscription balls; but for sustained intimacy and
proposals of marriage she had been dependent on the native youth of
Wiltstoken, whom she looked upon as louts or prigs, and among whom
Wallace Parker had shone pre-eminent as a university man, scholar,
and gentleman. And now that she was a privileged beauty in society
which would hardly tolerate Wallace Parker, she found that the nice
men were younger sons, poor and extravagant, far superior to Lucian
Webber as partners for a waltz, but not to be thought of as partners
in domestic economy. Alice had experienced the troubles of poverty,
and had never met with excellence in men except in poems, which she
had long ago been taught to separate from the possibilities of
actual life. She had, therefore, no conception of any degree of
merit in a husband being sufficient to compensate for slender means
of subsistence. She was not base-minded; nothing could have induced
her to marry a man, however rich, whom she thought wicked. She
wanted money; but she wanted more than money; and here it was that
she found supply failing to answer the demand. For not only were all
the handsome, gallant, well-bred men getting deeply into debt by
living beyond smaller incomes than that with which Wallace Parker
had tempted her, but many of those who had inherited both riches and
rank were as inferior to him, both in appearance and address, as
they were in scholarship. No man, possessing both wealth and
amiability, had yet shown the least disposition to fall in love with
her.
One bright forenoon in July, Alice, attended by a groom, went to the
park on horseback. The Row looked its best. The freshness of morning
was upon horses and riders; there were not yet any jaded people
lolling supine in carriages, nor discontented spectators sitting in
chairs to envy them. Alice, who was a better horsewoman than might
have been expected from the little practice she had had, appeared to
advantage in the saddle. She had just indulged in a brisk canter
from the Corner to the Serpentine, when she saw a large white horse
approaching with Wallace Parker on its back.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, expertly wheeling his steed and taking off his
hat at the same time with an intentional display of gallantry and
horsemanship. "How are you, Alice?"