He was not yet even face to face with the fulness of his disaster.

Only at moments had the real significance of it all come to him, and then he had shivered as before some terror menacing his path.

Also, as M.Mornay had said, his philosophy was now in his bones and marrow rather than in his words.

It had, after all, tinctured his blood and impregnated his mind.
He had babbled and been the egotist, and played cock o' the walk; and now at last his philosophy was giving some foundation for his feet.
Yet at this auction-sale he looked a distracted, if smiling, whimsical, rather bustling figure of misfortune, with a tragic air of exile, of isolation from all by which he was surrounded.

A profound and wayworn loneliness showed in his figure, in his face, in his eyes.
The crowd thinned in time, and yet very many lingered to see the last of this drama of lost fortunes.