The Perfume of Eros

Fanny Price has long hoped that Royal Loftus, the heir to the wealthy Loftus family, would court her, but he refuses to commit himself. Fanny is ideal, he thinks, but too ambitious, “with a perfect mania for matrimony.” Instead, he turns his attention to the far less affluent Marie Durand, sweeping her off her feet and proposing to her without ever making good on his promise. Fanny, rather disappointed by this turn of events, marries Arthur Annandale on a whim; his engagement to her friend Sylvia Waldron has just been broken off, and the events that led to it are hazy in his mind. These two i