But her degree differed from his degree. She had married for
freedom and wealth and to gain a larger scope wherein to exercise those
tastes which inherited disposition and education had given to her, as
she believed that he had married her because she was the daughter of a
peer.
Lady Honoria, like many another woman of her stamp, was the overbred, or
sometimes the underbred, product of a too civilized age and class. Those
primitive passions and virtues on which her husband had relied to make
the happiness of their married life simply did not exist for her. The
passions had been bred and educated out of her; for many generations
they have been found inconvenient and disquieting attributes in woman.
As for the old virtues, such as love of children and the ordinary round
of domestic duty, they simply bored her. On the whole, though sharp of
tongue, she rarely lost her temper, for her vices, like her virtues,
were of a somewhat negative order; but the fury which seized her when
she learned for certain that she was to become a mother was a thing that
her unfortunate husband never forgot and never wished to see again.
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