At first Grace had noticed the animal's confidence, beauty of form, and strength; but it had gradually got slack, hesitating, and limp.

Now, when it lurked, half-drowned, in the depths of the pool while its pitiless enemies waited for it to come up to breathe, she began to wish it would get away.
Thorn, the master of the hounds, was talking to his huntsman not far off.

He was a friend of Osborn's, and Grace had once thought him a dashing and accomplished man of the world, but had recently, for no obvious reason, felt antagonistic.

Alan was not as clever as she had imagined; he was smart, sometimes cheaply smart, which was another thing.

Then he was beginning to get fat, and she vaguely shrank from the way he now and then looked at her.