In this affair Marsham had acted on one of the convictions with which he
had entered public life--that there is no greater help to a politician
than a distinguished, clever, and, if possible, beautiful wife.
Distinction, Radical though he was, had once seemed to him a matter of
family and "connection." But after the failure of his first attempt,
"family," in the ordinary sense, had ceased to attract him. Personal
breeding, intelligence, and charm--these, after all, are what the
politician who is already provided with money, wants to secure in his
wife; without, of course, any obvious disqualification in the way of
family history. Diana, as he had first met her among the woods at
Portofino, side by side with her dignified and gentlemanly father, had
made upon him precisely that impression of personal distinction of which
he was in search--upon his mother also.
The appearance and the accent, however, of the cousin had struck him
with surprise; nor was it till he was nearing Tallyn that he succeeded
in shaking off the impression. Absurd! Everybody has some relations that
require to be masked--like the stables, or the back door--in a skilful
arrangement of life.
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