(Of course one is always a product of circumstances, unless one can manage to be superior to them.) His wife, the daughter of an American consul in Ireland, was a charming but somewhat feather-brained person, rather given to whims and caprices; very pretty, very young, very much spoiled, very attractive, very undisciplined.

All went well enough with them until her father was recalled to America, because of some change in political administration.
The young Mrs.La Touche seemed to have no resources apart from her family, and even her baby 'Jackeen' failed to absorb her as might have been expected.
"We thought her a most trying woman at this time," said Lady Killbally.
"She seemed to have no thought of her husband's interests, and none of the responsibilities that she had assumed in marrying him; her only idea of life appeared to be amusement and variety and gaiety.

Gerald was a student, and always very grave and serious; the kind of man who invariably marries a butterfly, if he can find one to make him miserable.

He was exceedingly patient; but after the birth of little Broona, Adeline became so homesick and depressed and discontented that, although the journey was almost an impossibility at the time, Gerald took her back to her people, and left her with them, while he returned to his duties at Trinity College.

Their life, I suppose, had been very unhappy for a year or two before this, and when he came home to Dublin without his children, he looked a sad and broken man.