But Marian 's father had decreed that no positive pledge should pass between them until Marian was twenty-one . Esterbrook accepted his mapped-out destiny and selected bride with the conviction that he was an exceptionally lucky fellow . Out of all the women in the world Marian was the very one whom he would have chosen as mistress of his fine , old home . She had been his boyhood 's ideal . He believed that he loved her sincerely , but he was not too much in love to be blind to the worldly advantages of his marriage with his cousin . His father had died two years previously , leaving him wealthy and independent . Marian had lost her mother in childhood ; her father died when she was eighteen . Since then she had lived alone with her aunt . Her life was quiet and lonely . Esterbrook 's companionship was all that brightened it , but it was enough . Marian lavished on him all the rich , womanly love of her heart . On her twenty-first birthday they were formally betrothed . They were to be married in the following autumn . No shadow had drifted across the heaven of her happiness . She believed herself secure in her lover 's unfaltering devotion . True , at times she thought his manner lacked a lover 's passionate ardour . He was always attentive and courteous . She had only to utter a wish to find that it had been anticipated ; he spent every spare minute at her side . Yet sometimes she half wished he would betray more lover-like impatience and intensity . Were all lovers as calm and undemonstrative ?
She reproached herself for this incipient disloyalty XXXXX often as it vexingly intruded its unwelcome presence across her inner consciousness .
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