Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/308

THE IVORY TOWER with his ability, or the impression of this that he also produces, he hasn't come on further. Deep down in the girl is her element of participation in this mistrust too—which is part of the reason why she hangs back, in spite of the kind of attraction he has for her, from any consent to, say, marry him. He, for that matter, hasn't in the least urged the case either—it hasn't been in him up to now, in spite of a failure or two, in spite of the failure notably with Rosanna, to close by a positive act the always possibly open door to his marrying money. I see the recognition of all this between them as of well-nigh the crudest and the most typical, the most "modern"; in fact I see their relation as of a highly exhibitional value and interest. What the Girl indeed doesn't, and doesn't want to (up to now) express, is exactly that limit, and the ground of it, of her faith in him as a financial conqueror. She is willing more or less to believe, to confide, in his own confidence—she sees him indeed as more probably than not marked for triumphant acquisition; but the latent, "deep down" thing is her wonderment as to the character of his methods—if the so-called straight ones won't have served or sufficed. She sees him as a fine adventurer—which is a good deal too how she sees herself; but almost crude though I have called their terms of mutual understanding it hasn't come up for them, and I think it is absolutely never to come up for them, that 294