Uttered insincerely, such words would be insult; she would see through his pretence of earnestness, and then farewell to her for ever.

But if his intellectual sympathy became tinged with passion--and did he discern no possibility of that?
An odd thing were he to fall in love with Rhoda Nunn.

Hitherto his ideal had been a widely different type of woman; he had demanded rare beauty of face, and the charm of a refined voluptuousness.

To be sure, it was but an ideal; no woman that approached it had ever come within his sphere.
The dream exercised less power over him than a few years ago; perhaps because his youth was behind him.

Rhoda might well represent the desire of a mature man, strengthened by modern culture and with his senses fairly subordinate to reason.