How did it affect him?
Naturally, he was flattered.

It afforded another instance of his lordship among men; a woman whom others longed for desperately and in vain was his when he chose to extend his hand to her.

He saw, too, an appropriateness in the chance which offered him such a wife; Beatrice was in harmony with the future to which he aspired.

Her property joined to his would make him so wealthy that he might aim almost at anything; political and social progress would aid each other, both rapid.

Beatrice was in many respects brilliant; there was no station that she would not become; she had the tastes and habits of society.