Chapter 2 - Page 2

Life as illustrated by
the World, the Flesh and the Devil by none of which he was--as far
as could be observed--either impressed, disturbed or prejudiced.
His own experience had been richly varied and practically unlimited
in its opportunities for pleasure, sinful or unsinful indulgence,
mitigated or unmitigated wickedness, the gathering of strange
knowledge, and the possible ignoring of all dull boundaries. This
being the case a superhuman charity alone could have forborne to
believe that his opportunities had been neglected in the heyday
of his youth. Wealth and lady of limitations in themselves would
have been quite enough to cause the Nonconformist Victorian mind
to regard a young--or middle-aged--male as likely to represent a
fearsome moral example, but these three temptations combined with
good looks and a certain mental brilliance were so inevitably the
concomitants of elegant iniquity that the results might be taken
for granted.

That the various worlds in which he lived in various lands accepted
him joyfully as an interesting and desirable of more or less
abominably sinful personage, the Head of the House of Coombe--even
many years before he became its head--regarded with the detachment
which he had, even much earlier, begun to learn. Why should it be
in the least matter what people thought of one? Why should it in
the least matter what one thought of oneself--and therefore--why
should one think at all? He had begun at the outset a brilliantly
happy young pagan with this simple theory. After the passing of
some years he had not been quite so happy but had remained quite
as pagan and retained the theory which had lost its first fine
careless rapture and gained a secret bitterness. He had not married
and innumerable stories were related to explain the reason why.
They were most of them quite false and none of them quite true.
When he ceased to be a young man his delinquency was much discussed,
more especially when his father died and he took his place as the
head of his family. He was old enough, rich enough, important enough
for marriage to be almost imperative. But he remained unmarried.
In addition he seemed to consider his abstinence entirely an affair
of his own.

"Are you as wicked as people say you are?" a reckless young woman
once asked him. She belonged to the younger set which was that
season trying recklessness, in a tentative way, as a new fashion.

"I really don't know. It is so difficult to decide," he answered.
"I could tell better if I knew exactly what wickedness is. When
I find out I will let you know. So good of you to take an interest."

Thirty years earlier he knew that a young lady who had heard he was
wicked would have