frankly that she did not love him, that she would never love him, and that she begged his attentions would straightway cease.
Even then he laughed at her verdict. The mother and the relatives were passionately on his side. But he would not stoop to seeking their aid. For the first time in his life he suffered acutely. His heart bled, and his pride as well. People who heard the rumor of Lilian's indifference laughed at it. "Impossible!" cried society. While Bendelow was in a torment of perplexity and doubt, the news burst upon him that Lilian Van Corlear had eloped with a young doctor, of no special position or influence, whose income could not be more than six thousand dollars a year.
By degrees he recovered from this shock, though he was never quite the same man after it. He had formed his own theories, as we know, and here had fate suddenly stepped in to challenge and subvert them! He did not soften on recognizing the fact that money, and even semi-omnipotence, were far from being agencies; on the contrary, he hardened, and became infused by an arrogance of whose first stealthy approaches he was himself unaware.
A little later he was accepted by a girl of high social place, strikingly handsome, and an heiress of no mean claim. She was Ellinor Torringdon, admitted by her best friends to be ambitious, but by her worst foes to have much womanly worth. She and Bendelow made what folk called a striking couple. Her stature was only a little below his, and she had heavy masses of night-black hair and a face full of pride and courage, yet withal touched by a surpassing sweetness. After their marriage they lived for a number of years the life of the very prosperous New Yorkers: that is, they gave sumptuous entertainments to a certain circle of exclusives, whom other would-be exclusives fiercely envied. They treated the Atlantic Ocean as dead and gone New Yorkers used to treat the Brooklyn ferry, and were as familiar with the sands of Egypt as with those of Long Island, with the lindens of Berlin as with the elms of Central Park. In respect to London and to England generally, they not only knew them very well, but knew many of their prominent citizens. They lived, in short, the modern cosmopolitan life of enormously rich Americans. A great retinue of servants followed them when they went abroad; few European princes traveled more luxuriously.
Two children, in the early years of their marriage, had been born to them. The first was a boy, Aaron, healthy, strong, with traces of his mother's beauty and of his father's athletic frame; the second was a girl, Evelyn, with the paternal cast of features, but the maternal eyes, dark and velvety, the maternal grace of bearing, elegant and secure. Bayard Bendelow was proud of both his children, just as he was proud of his clever and queenly wife.
But it irked him to be courted and pointed at solely because of his huge wealth. He had certain political opinions of a very pronounced sort, and since he had chosen to aid with liberal contributions the party of his preference, this party, when at one time placed in power, broadly hinted to him that he should receive its full support if he chose to accept the nomination for a Washington Senatorship. But Bendelow declined the overture. He disliked Washington life (of which he had had a taste), in the first place; and in the second place, he knew himself to be a capable but by no means brilliant speaker. If he could have gone into the Senate and become another Sumner or Conkling, this would have altered matters most radically. But to sit without startling distinction in an assemblage where both brains and oratory were paramount, offered no appreciable lure. Instead of such honor he contrived to make it plain that he would accept with satisfaction the Ambassadorship (it was then called a Ministership) to the Court of St. James. This suggestion was duly considered, and with a certain delay
