“Love was a frivolous emotion, certainly no basis for a marriage – every young lady knew this. You must always put sense over feeling, Madame Denis, Alva’s favorite teacher, had said. Sense will feed you, clothe you, provide your homes and your horses and your bibelots. Feelings are like squalls at sea – mere nuisances if one is lucky, but many girls have lost their way in such storms, some of them never to return. Alva did not need to love William Vanderbilt; she needed only to marry him.”
