They were so dissimilar in taste, so uncongenial; and I really think
_he_ did not love her!"
"_He_ had no other motive, at all events."
"Oh, of course he had a certain preference for her; and it was the sort
of triumph that such a man would relish--to carry her off from you at the
last moment. I always recognized _his_ influence in the sensational
elements of that denouement. He liked her after a fashion--to preside in
a princess-like style in his big house, to illustrate to advantage his
florid expenditure of money, to sparkle with wit and diamonds at the head
of his table--a fine surface for decoration she has! But Royston couldn't
love--couldn't really care for anything but himself--a man of that
temperament."
Bayne rose; he had reached the limit of his endurance; he could maintain
his tutored indifference, but he would not seek to analyze the event anew
or to adjust himself to the differentiations of sentiment that Briscoe
seemed disposed to expect him to canvass.
The encroachments of the surging seas of mist had reduced the limits of
the world to the interior of the bungalow, and the myriad interests and
peoples of civilization to the little household circle.
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