Of course I shall be blackguarded right and left.

Do I deserve it now?
Can I help it ?' It was not quite consistent with the tone in which he had begun, but it had the force of a genuine utterance.

To this Richard had worked himself in fretting over his position; he was the real sufferer, though decency compelled him to pretend it was not so.

He had come to think of Emma almost angrily; she was a clog on him, and all the more irritating because he knew that his brute strength, if only he might exert it, could sweep her into nothingness at a blow.

The quietness with which Alice accepted his revelation encouraged him in self-defence.