I am not a lucky individual, you know.

Destiny and I have been at odds ever since I was a schoolboy." "Not in love yet, John ?" "No," the other answered, with rather a gloomy look.
He was sitting on a corner of the ponderous desk in a lounging attitude, gazing meditatively at his boots, and hitting one of them now and then with a cane he carried, in a restless kind of way.
"You see, the fact of the matter is, Gil," he began at last, "as I told you just now, if ever I do marry, mercenary considerations are likely to be at the bottom of the business.

I don't mean to say that I would marry a woman I disliked, and take it out of her in ill-usage or neglect.

I am not quite such a scoundrel as that.

But if I had the luck to meet with a woman I _could_ like, tolerably pretty and agreeable, and all that kind of thing, and weak enough to care for me--a woman with a handsome fortune--I should be a fool not to snap at such a chance." "I see," exclaimed Gilbert, "you have met with such a woman." "I have." Again the gloomy look came over the dark strongly-marked face, the thick black eyebrows contracted in a frown, and the cane was struck impatiently against John Saltram's boot.
"But you are not in love with her; I see that in your face, Jack.