Fairing declared his love. She would give him no answer. For as soon
as she was presented with the issue, the destiny, she began to look round
her anxiously. The first person to fill the perspective was Charley
Steele. As her mind dwelt on him, her uncle gave forth his judgment,
that she should never have a penny if she married Tom Fairing. This only
irritated her, it did not influence her. But there was Charley. He was
a figure, was already noted in his profession because of a few masterly
successes in criminal cases, and if he was not popular, he was
distinguished, and the world would talk about him to the end. He was
handsome, and he was well-to-do-he had a big unoccupied house on the hill
among the maples. How many people had said, What a couple they would
make-Charley Steele and Kathleen Wantage!

So, as Fairing presented an issue to her, she concentrated her thoughts
as she had never done before on the man whom the world set apart for her,
in a way the world has.

As she looked and looked, Charley began to look also. He had not been
enamoured of the sordid things of the world; he had been merely curious.
He thought vice was ugly; he had imagination and a sense of form.
Kathleen was beautiful. Sentiment had, so he thought, never seriously
disturbed her; he did not think it ever would. It had not affected him.
He did not understand it. He had been born non-intime. He had had
acquaintances, but never friendships, and never loves or love. But he
had a fine sense of the fitting and the proportionate, and he worshipped
beauty in so far as he could worship anything. The homage was cerebral,
intellectual, temperamental, not of the heart. As he looked out upon the
world half pityingly, half ironically, he was struck with wonder at the
disproportion which was engendered by "having heart," as it was called.