He dried her tears and comforted her, and forgave all the injurious things
she had said of him. It is almost impossible for a man--a man under forty
and unmarried, and who is not a philosopher--to have familiar and
affectionate intercourse with a beautiful young woman, and carry it on as
he might do with a friend of the other sex. In his very heart Greystock
despised this woman; he had told himself over and over again that were
there no Lucy in the case he would not marry her; that she was affected,
unreal--and in fact a liar in every word and look and motion which came
from her with premeditation. Judging, not from her own account, but from
circumstances as he saw them, and such evidence as had reached him, he did
not condemn her in reference to the diamonds. He had never for a moment
conceived that she had secreted them. He acquitted her altogether from
those special charges which had been widely circulated against her; but
nevertheless he knew her to be heartless and bad. He had told himself a
dozen times that it would be well for him that she should be married and
taken out of his hands. And yet he loved her after a fashion, and was
prone to sit near her, and was fool enough to be flattered by her
caresses.
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