Surely he could feel naught for her but the
rancor she had earned! From the beginning, she had been all siren, all
deceit. She was but the semblance, the figment, of his foolish dream, and
why should the dream move him still, shattered as it was by the torturing
realities of the truth? Why must he needs bring tribute to her powers,
flatter her ascendency in his life, by faltering before her casual
presence? He rallied all his forces. He silently swore a mighty oath that
he at least would take note of his own dignity, that he would deport
himself with a due sense of his meed of self-respect. Though with a
glittering eye and a strong flush on his cheek, he conserved a deliberate
incidental manner, and maintained a pose of extreme interest in his own
prelection as, seated in an arm-chair before the fire he began to talk
with a very definite intention of a quiet self-assertion, of absorbing
and controlling the conversation. He described at great length the
incidents of his trip hither, and descanted on the industrial and
political conditions of east Tennessee.
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