This was true. The ball at Dunholm Castle had been enlightening, and
had wrought some changes in his points of view. Also other factors had
influenced him. In the first place, the changed atmosphere of Stornham,
the fitness and luxury of his surroundings, the new dignity given to his
position by the altered aspect of things, rendered external amiability
more easy. To ride about the country on a good horse, or drive in a
smart phaeton, or suitable carriage, and to find that people who a year
ago had passed him with the merest recognition, saluted him with polite
intention, was, to a certain degree, stimulating to a vanity which had
been long ill-fed. The power which produced these results should, of
course, have been in his own hands--his money-making father-in-law
should have seen that it was his affair to provide for that--but since
he had not done so, it was rather entertaining that it should be, for
the present, in the hands of this extraordinarily good-looking girl.
He had begun by merely thinking of her in this manner--as "this
extraordinarily good-looking girl," and had not, for a moment, hesitated
before the edifying idea of its not being impossible to arrange a lively
flirtation with her.
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