"
This announcement fell like a thunderbolt in the assembly of
fashionable idlers. All knew the history of the house at Fulham. They
knew of Paulina Durski only as a beautiful, but dangerous, syren, whose
fatal smiles lured men to their ruin. That Douglas Dale should unite
himself to such a woman seemed to them little short of absolute
madness.
Love must be strong indeed which will face the ridicule of mankind
unflinchingly. Douglas Dale knew that, in redeeming Paulina from her
miserable situation, in elevating her to a position that many blameless
and well-born Englishwomen would have gladly accepted, he was making a
sacrifice which the men amongst whom he lived would condemn as the act
of a fool. But he was willing to endure this, painful though it was to
him, for the sake of the woman he loved.
"Better that I should have the scorn of shallow-brained worldlings than
that the blight on her life should continue," he said to himself. "When
she is my wife, no man will dare to question her honour--no woman will
dare to frown upon her when she enters society leaning on my arm."
This is what Douglas Dale repeated to himself very often during his
courtship of Paulina Durski. This is what he thought as he stood erect
and defiant in the crowded room of the Pall Mall club, facing the
curious looks of his acquaintances.
After the first shock there was a dead silence; no voice murmured the
common-place phrases of congratulation which might naturally have
followed such an announcement.
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