It was quite clear now, even if proof had not been needed before, that poor George was not clever, or he would never have picked out such a wife. It was no answer to this argument that Magdalen had the free beauty of a wood-elf, or that the general, her father, had brought a heavy store of Indian rupees back with him to his native town. George Fossebraye was too dull to be supposed to be susceptible to beauty or to be influenced by prudent motives.