He knew that he would not.
It was the pitiful defiance of a boaster hopelessly hurt.
He no longer desired to see her again.

Never again would he risk enduring what she had evoked in him, whatever it was of good or of evil, of the spiritual or the impure--he did not know he was aware only of what his eyes had beheld and his heart had begun to desire.
On his way back from the office that evening he met Camilla Lent and her uncle, the Captain, and would have passed with an amiable salute, but the girl evinced a decided desire to speak.

So he turned and joined them.
"How do you do, Camilla?
How are you, Captain Lent?
This re-conversion of the nation's ploughshares and pruning hooks is a noisy affair, isn't it ?" "April 18th, 1861!" replied the Captain quickly.

"What you hear, sir, is the attrition consequent upon the grinding together of certain millstones belonging to the gods." "I have no doubt of it, Captain Lent; they'll probably make meal of us all.

Are you offering your services, sir." Camilla said quickly, and with gayest confidence: "Uncle has been looking about casually.