If she had known, good heavens, if she had only known! But he inclined now to the more merciful view that, veritably, she didn't know; that her practical, even her theoretic, knowledge was insufficient for her to have had any clear design.

It was just a blind push of starved animal instinct.

Of course she must go.

Her remaining in the house was in every way unpermissible; still he need not, perhaps, have been so cold-bloodedly precipitate with her.
Anyhow the thing was done--it was done--He raised his shoulders and making with his hands a graphic gesture of dismissal, let his chin drop on to his breast again.
For the East had left its mark on his attitude towards women with one exception--that of his daughter--Charles Verity, like most men, not requiring of himself to be too rigidly consistent.

Hence Theresa, and all which pertained to her, even her follies, appeared to him of contemptibly small moment compared with the developments for which those follies might be held accidentally responsible.