I've been to two or three towns in the Midland districts--Beauport, Mudborough, and Ullerton--and have found the same stagnation everywhere." Nothing could be more perfect than the semblance of unconscious innocence with which the Captain gave this account of himself: whether he was playing a part, or whether he was telling the entire truth, was a question which even a cleverer man than Valentine Hawkehurst might have found himself unable to answer.
The two men sat till late, smoking and talking; but to-night Valentine found the conversation of his "guide, philosopher, and friend" strangely distasteful to him.

That cynical manner of looking at life, which not long ago had seemed to him the only manner compatible with wisdom and experience, now grated harshly upon those finer senses which had been awakened in the quiet contemplative existence he had of late been leading.

He had been wont to enjoy Captain Paget's savage bitterness against a world which had not provided him with a house in Carlton-gardens, and a seat in the Cabinet; but to-night he was revolted by the noble Horatio's tone and manner.

Those malicious sneers against respectable people and respectable prejudices, with which the Captain interlarded all his talk, seemed to have a ghastly grimness in their mirth.

It was like the talk of some devil who had once been an angel, and had lost all hope of ever being restored to his angelic status.
"To believe in nothing, to respect nothing, to hope for nothing, to fear nothing, to consider life as so many years in which to scheme and lie for the sake of good dinners and well-made coats--surely there can be no state of misery more complete, no degradation more consummate," thought the young man, as he sat by the fireside smoking and listening dreamily to his companion.